Operation Glitterberries
by BF110C4
Summary: The rescue personnel should have done a more thoughtful check on Daria before evacuating her from the forest, now is too late… Now Melody Powers must evade capture and destroy her enemies in Lawndale before they destroy her.
1. In the Glitterberry Forest

Operation Glitterberries:

Prologue

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Honk!

"Why dad had to choose the deepest part of Oakwood National Park instead of one of the family friendly camp zones with a Ranger within sight?"

Honk!

Preventing her delusional family from doing something dangerous was just like preventing Beavis and Butthead from doing something stupid, pointless and denigrating but in need to be done anyway. And it was a risky affair too, his father outweighing her by at least a factor a hundred pounds, and her mother was likewise taller, heavier and stronger.

Honk!

"The next two hours are going to be hell."

Honk!

The first and only one that she was able to outright restrain had been Quinn, and even then she had been slapped and kicked more than a few times before she had managed to lure her inside the SUV, and then locked her inside.

Honk!

"But Daria, I must fly with the rest of the fairies, they need me to carry the glitterberries to the crowning of the queen."

Honk!

"No Quinn, you need to calm down, I've already called for help, they're sending a helicopter, and that's showier than some old unfashionable pixie wings."

Honk!

"And stop playing with the horn!"

Honk!

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

After making sure Quinn was tightly tied with both the seatbelt, Daria had went to find both her parents deeper in the forest struggling in the ground. Terrified that maybe her dad had gone violent she had foolishly gone to the rescue, all the way cursing and praying to whatever gods were playing with her. Luckily beating two sticks together had been enough to scare her father away; no mater how gentle her father was he still was from her perspective a huge man who had expended his teenage years in a cruel military academy and had survived it, if he had chosen to fight Daria doubted that she would have been left alive, much less conscious.

"Sergeant, that jelly donut in the locker wasn't mine! It's a setup, a setup I tell you! Oh no, not another blanket party, for the love of god please!"

"God bless childhood traumas," at least there was a sunny side to all of the psychological abuse her mind was getting right now. In a few years if she had a psychotic break they would be able to scare her away by showing her a few glitterberries.

"Mom, don't worry, I drove him away, now why don't you…" Ironically enough after helping Helen to get up she shoved her while she was still out of balance.

"Why you did that, he was about to properly ravage me, just as pirates are ought to do!" After saying that she went to find Jake once more, shouting about spirit animals and rituals all the way.

She would have been horrified about knowing this little snippet of her parents' sexual life, but to add injury to insult, trying to prevent damage to the cell phone she had twisted midfall and landed sideways on a rock. Hard.

It took a few moments to get her bearings back; once she could at least sit up she checked her right pocket for the cell. At least it had been worth her pain, it still worked. Then she carefully touched her left side and felt a wave of nausea hit her at once, followed by cold sweat.

"Great!" She screamed, frustrated to no end, and immediately regrets it when a second wave of pain hit her.

She was then distracted by a series of groans and moans, interceded by the occasional giggle. It seemed that the dreaded pirate Jake had finally found the beautiful queen of the Gray Fox tribe, and was currently ravaging her with great enthusiasm.

And the worst part? She couldn't even give them a modicum of privacy, if they get separated after they were done, they could get into trouble before she found them again, if she could. So she stood a few feet apart from her amorous and delirious parents doing her best not to look, and not to pay attention to the noise.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

She spend an hour and a half preventing her parents from doing something dangerous (the time to prevent them from doing foolish or embarrassing stuff had long since gone), and herding them towards each other, even if that meant a second or third show that she would need to erase from her mind with a lot of therapy and maybe some illegal drugs of her own, just to keep them in a single place where she could protect them from themselves. To pass the time she recollected some of the berries in a bush near the two lovers in case they were useful for the detox. And who knew? Maybe she could later commercialize it as a natural alternative to Viagra. Murphy then decided she was too positive, so of course the bush would have thorns, lot's of them.

The only thing she found herself considering important enough to get them out of her sight even for a limited amount of time was to gather some fuel and green leaves to prepare a beacon for her would-be rescuers.

Finally she heard the characteristic sound of a helicopter nearby, and then per the instructions of the emergency dispatcher she called the number of the office of the forestall service where the chopper was based and told them her approximate position, which was then relayed by radio.

When they were close enough she lit her copy of Warden, which lacking any other reliable way of preparing a bonfire she had been forced to use. Once the fire was big enough she added the green leaves to create large quantities of smoke. It was with a lot of relief and tears, courtesy of the thick smoke, that they headed straight to her.

The helicopter then landed on the nearby clearing and from it five men went out, one of them carrying a large backpack and other had a rifle slung in his shoulder, as they got closer to her their uniforms identified four of them as rangers and the one with the backpack as a paramedic.

"Daria Morgendorffer? I'm ranger O'Hara and these are rangers Thorne, Jones and Walker, we are part of the Oakwood National Park Conservation Office. This gentleman here is EMT Miles, and in the cockpit is Captain Abrams, they come from the county's Emergency Response Unit. Are you hurt? Could you tell us the situation of the other victims?"

"Okay, my entire family minus me ate some sort of hallucinogen berries, my sister calls them glitterberries before she ran away flapping like a demented butterfly, while I fully trusting my dad's foraging skills decided to skip breakfast. Since I didn't have anything better to do I spend some of my time collecting them for your convenience." After saying that in a monotone that the adults erroneously thought she was using to cope with the situation, instead of a way of coping with her life, she showed ranger O'Hara the plastic bag that once held her book to protect it from the elements and now was filled with red berries.

The park officer first examined them, and then carefully took one on his gloved hand and held it close to his face, first smelling it and then giving a slight tentative lick. "Well, I got no idea what kind of berry it is. Do any of you know?" He passed the bag to the rest of his team, and they pronounced themselves just as ignorant. Then the paramedic asked, "Which are the symptoms?"

"About an hour after breakfast my dad started acting more erratically than usual, that did worry us a little but then he had been acting weird since he got into the middle age crisis that brought us here in the first place, but then mom started doing the same, and finally my sister. Since I know that my father can be a glutton when he wants, and my sister is on a permanent diet, I believe that the delay was in proportion to the amounts of berries they ate. They have dilated pupils and some sensitivity to daylight, and they literally won't recognize their own names."

"That's very concise Daria. Do they show abnormal thirst, a rash or something similar, if there is any indication that their condition has worsened or improved since the onset of their symptoms?"

"No, they are just as wacky as the beginning."

"Then I wouldn't recommend they use of the tranquilizer rifle. They might have an adverse reaction with whatever is on their bodies."

"Then this is going to be the hard way, do you know were everyone is?"

"My sister Quinn is strapped on the SUV a few yards down the trail, she thinks that she's some sort of fairy and is more or less safe as long as you keep her out of the horn. Last time I saw mom and dad was a little deeper in the forest, about five minutes ago when you did that first low pass over us, then I concentrated in getting you here and I lost sight of them. Mom thinks she is some sort of queen of the forest, while dad is a dreaded pirate who thankfully is too gone to even try to talk like one. If they get together for long they start going at it like rabbits, so please get them some emergency contraceptives as soon as they get to the hospital, I really don't want to be a babysitter for the last year of high school."

"It was Thorne, the ranger who had the tranq rifle on his shoulder the one that expressed his heartfelt condolences. "Damn, sorry about that kid, that's the kind of stuff that no one wants to know about their parents."

"Yeah, try sitting six feet from it, while doing your best not to look." Then she half sat, half collapsed on a tree stump. In a second the medic was alongside her. "Were does it hurts?"

"In my side, fell sideways on it. Kind of forgot about it."

"Please take of your jacket and let me take a look." She did as told, however when he tried to raise part of the orange t-shirt he noted her hesitation. "Don't worry, got wife and thirteen year old daughter. Nothing I haven't seen before."

After touching her with a little more delicacy that she had tried before and nothing her grunts of pain he concluded, "Bruised ribs, maybe even broken. You'll need X-rays once you get to the hospital."

"This trip is getting better and better."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

For the rangers capturing her family wasn't a walk in the park either. While her sister had been an easy catch, with Daria having done all the work earlier in the morning, Jake and Helen had run off as soon as they heard them coming, so they had to separate on pairs to catch them both. But the real problem occurred when they had managed to capture Helen and they were about to cuff her, provoking Jake into coming and attacking them from the side with berserk rage and years of unarmed combat training that weren't inhibited by a gentle personality. The only reason that the two rangers holding his wife were only sprouting some bruises instead of something more serious was because he had been more concerned about her than about ripping them to pieces and as soon as she was free they both had ran away towards the landing zone.

In the end when they had approached and both the pilot, who went out for a smoke, and the medic had interposed their bodies between the two crazy adults and the injured teen, Daria took once more a couple of sticks and making a racket she started talking stuff about blankets and cadet Morgendorffer, transforming the unstoppable pirate into a shivering wreck on the floor, while her queen watched concerned. At least until all six grown up men went and threw themselves at the couple and wrested them to the ground, of course only after the slender and injured girl had all but cowed that same couple into submission.

While her family was properly secured in the helicopter Daria went to the remains of their camp and took her father's duffel bag and filled it with her stuff plus her parents' I.D.s, credit cards and every cent she could find, including her sister's. If she wasn't checked in the hospital she was going to find the V.I.P suit of the closest first class hotel to the Oakwood General Hospital and try to enjoy the remaining weekend.

Once she was done she gave the car's keys to the rangers, who were still quite embarrassed by their performance. Since there wasn't enough space on the chopper they would take the SUV to their own Motor Pool, instead of sending it to the Police Pound, therefore saving some money and time, and stress, to her parents. Every little bit would help, she wasn't worried about the hospital, but she doubted that their insurance covered Aerial Med-Evacs, ample coverage or not.

Once the rest of the patients were secured so tight than even breathing was hard, no one wanted to fly with a psycho bouncing on his seat; she was also given a seat in the second row. She wasn't allowed in front, supposedly because the EMT was better qualified for reading the instruments alongside the pilot. Daria suspected that it was because he didn't want to expend time with the crazies. It was a long trip until they arrived to Oakwood's heliport where an ambulance would pick them up.

So she just squirmed on her seat, making a little extra space by pushing forward the case with the tranquilizer rifle and the restrains that were supposed to be in case they had found her as loony as her family. At least the analgesic the medic gave her was taking effect; she was falling asleep and she almost didn't feel her ribs complain, not even when leaning on the seatbelt, and her hands weren't hurting as much anymore.

It was a shame that while worrying about her ribs, the EMT forgot to check her hands and clean them for cuts and abrasions, maybe add a little antiseptic balm. Especially since they were so itchy and bothersome thanks to the concentrated toxins found in the leaves and bushes that were the origin of the glitterberries…

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

A sudden and violent movement of the craft was the reason she woke up. She was so disoriented that it took a long moment before she could even recognize her surroundings, much less acknowledge them. She was inside a helicopter, but why?

"Sorry about that, just a gust of wind."

"Shut up, she's asleep, and with all the noise that's a miracle all by itself. We'll deal with her when we reach the base."

That last comment put the rest of the place into focus, the restrained prisoners, and of course the traditional secret base. She had been drugged and was going to be sent to a torture chamber as soon as this helicopter touched the ground.

While looking for a tool to free herself from this new mess she muttered so low that only she caught her words.

"Just another day for Melody Powers…"


	2. Red Parrot Down

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 01: Red Parrot Down

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

While looking for a tool to free herself from this new mess she muttered so low that only she caught her words. "Just another day for Melody Powers…"

She left the confusion she was feeling behind, it didn't matter that she had no idea why was she there; those kinds of doubts were best left after the combat was over. The first thing to do was to establish just what she was going to be fighting against, and what she had to fight with.

For starters physically she was in a pretty bad situation; she felt her ribs hurting, and they were hurting bad for the pain to even register, she was more than used to pain that would let most men crying in the ground. And her ribs weren't the only thing hurting, her body felt just as if she had fought hand to hand against one of the augmented Bolshevik's super soldiers attempts, and then drunk more vodka than a Red General during a veteran's reunion.

The lack of strength and coordination would make her escape an even more difficult proposition. And the light was too bright, a sure symptom of either drugs or a contusion, and by the lack of corresponding injuries in the head she would put her money on drugs. And why was she wearing glasses?

And why was her body not restrained? Last time she had been captured she had been tucked more tightly than a Thanksgiving Turkey, and even then they gave her an escort of an infantry platoon all for herself. The answer was literally at her feet. A set of hand and leg restrains like the ones used on the helicopter's other prisoners were in the floor. She must have been able to take them off just before whatever drug they gave her knocked her out.

And thinking about her freedom directed her attention to her fellow captives; for what she could see they were a middle age man, a similar aged woman, and a teen girl; they were all healthy and well fed, even if the girl was a little on the thin side it looked more like a question of diets and relative beauty than one of starvation and mistreatment; the man had a few bruises and scratches here and there, but nothing that suggested a long incarceration or systematic abuse.

The women were wearing comfortable outdoor clothes, nothing professional nor military issue, but she could see at least a couple of U.S. brands, mostly on the little girl; probably middle class, almost upper middle class. The man had only his underwear, but even then it was of an American label and of a higher quality that you could find in the Eastern Block, and he looked quite roughed and dirty; combined with the hair of the woman and the evidence in her own body and clothes it meant that they had been all captured in the woods.

As far as she could tell they were the normal American family that ate apple pie and enjoyed camping in the woods, and now all of them were crazier than an Arab terrorist, screaming nonsense nonstop. They had probably been tortured into insanity, by the lack of telling injuries with a combination of electric shocks and mind bending drugs. And by the smell of the woman at her side she had been raped. Repeatedly…

'I swear I'm going to make them pay!'

Then she focused once more on her surroundings, the pilots were sit in the front in a place were they weren't able to react in any meaningful manner against anything that she could do in the back. They also didn't seem to care, chatting merrily nonsense about… Rangers! Were they part of a U.S. Army outfit, NSA maybe? No, the grunts of the NSA were a lot more competent that these clowns, many of their mistakes would grant them a bullet in the back by any responsible superior. Therefore they were mercenaries, survivors of the conflicts in Asia and the Middle East, people who knew how to fly and fight but that weren't trained for Black Ops. In other words: Amateurs.

Even then, she had been captured by these amateurs, or the individual who hired them, and she is in a bad enough shape that escaping once they reach their base might be impossible. She needs to get out of here while they're on transit, and for that she needs an equalizer.

She felt something on her right pocket, something bulky. Eyeing the pilots she carefully slipped her hand and felt the general shape of a radio, maybe one of the Company's Satellite Ringers. This gave her hope in more ways than one; not only she had a way of communicating to the base for a Sitrep once she was free; but now she also knew that her captors ignored who they were dealing with or were incompetent in the extreme and with a little bit of luck maybe both.

Then she directed her attention to the black and long box her feet were on, just bellow her abandoned restrains. The general shape was one that she recognized, and if it was what she thought, then her escape would be a lot easier. Maneuvering with the boots she was using, and those were some of the worst footwear she could think for a mission, she opened the box, no, case, carefully not to attract the attention of her minders.

What she saw inside made her smile, just as if it was Christmas Eve in her childhood home in Massachusetts.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The Eurocopter AS355N TwinStar call sign Parrot2 had been in operation with the Oakwood County Emergency Response Unit for the last two years, and in all that time its main pilot had been captain (retired) John Abrams, former U.S. army UH-60 pilot during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After been overlooking one field of mechanized death too many he decided to resign his commission as soon as that particular war was over and find a stable work in a place where he could enjoy his wife and sons in peace. The first opportunity for that arose in the county's emergency services, just in time to miss the mass deployment into Somalia, and the nasty Battle of Mogadishu.

From this chopper he had seen many things, acts of courage that would have been worthy of a statue if the world had been perfect, but here were paid with a beer at the end of the day. Situations so funny and incongruent that his on-board camera had been used a couple of times for a local comical news program called Sick, Sad World, and most people believed those were fakes.

And of course tragedies, those occasions were no matter how fast did they arrive and no matter how perfect their actions were, dead and suffering had been inevitable. Operations so sad that he just wanted to forget them altogether, and that on the bad nights he wondered if he could have skimmed an additional second, or if he could have flown a little closer to the victim, just a little…

When the 911 dispatch sent a request for a six seater chopper he had his ground crew add four seats instead of the usual two stretchers. Then once that was done he took alongside Henry Miles, his trustful EMT and unofficial copilot, a serious boy, but fast with the hands and quite good with a deck of cards. He only knew that there was a family in distress in the middle of nowhere and he needed to carry the cavalry to save the day.

Then he picked up the cavalry, four rangers at the Oakwood National Park Conservation Office; once they were in the air they explained the current situation to him in far more detail. A moron took his family deep in the woods of the Oakwood forest, following a trail built for the maintenance of the cell towers that crossed the whole forest and wasn`t supposed to be used by the visitors, and somehow three of them had managed to get high on hallucinogen mushrooms.

They expected that the afflicted tourists would be wandering deep in the woods, and that they would need as much support in the air as we could give before running out of fuel. With a little bit of luck they would be able to rescue the eldest daughter and maybe one of the others before darkness. Additional reinforcements would be dispatched by land, but those wouldn't be able to reach the camp for hours.

He had been as impressed as the rest of the hastily assembled team by the brunette's accurate directions and the use of a smoke beacon to mark her chosen Landing Zone; most people in distress just limited themselves to waving with their hands in the middle of a forest with zero visibility and expected to be seen by men flying hundreds of feet from the ground. And in the way his new buddies, the park rangers, had told him just how close to impossible was to keep three different persons who were flying higher and harder than an Air Force F-16; for that little slip of a girl to herd them for more than two hours was unbelievable.

He kind of wished that today had been the first time he had seen a man in underwear go berserk, or even his third, but he had been in air support missions for the police for long time now, and many of those had been on whorehouses raids. The only novel thing about it was that this time he had been on the ground smoking and not just pointing a searchlight and laughing at the poor uniformed guys chasing them.

Putting himself between the nutso and the girl had been natural, and it would have probably been painful if the girl hadn't taken control of the situation herself by hitting two sticks together and talking, not screaming, just talking some sort of nonsense. He didn't even had time to think that she had gone bananas too before watching the man go from screaming fury to a gibbering mess in a second, and action that was enough to convince him that a child so small keeping her bigger and meaner relatives controlled and safe wasn't lucridious, it was just the natural order of things.

But now the dangerous part of the mission was over, all the members of the family afflicted by the glitterberries, and the girl swore that the name came from her sister's mouth not hers, were strapped to their seats so hard than Miles had to loosen the straps a little to prevent gangrene. The only remaining sane member on the other hand was so tired that not even the racket from the rotor stopped her dreams.

He just loved happy endings.

"Do you want to go to the Drunken Dog when we arrive? I bet we can get some free beers if we tell our story of how four big bad rangers were bested by a naked pirate and his wrench, and then their hides were saved by an eight year old girl with a stick?"

"Eh? He wasn't naked, just in underwear; the woman is his wife, not a wrench; and the girl is sixteen not eight; and more important, she didn't save them, she saved US."

"Nah, we didn't need to be saved, once the loon had come within arms reach I would have taught him what does a blanket party means in the real army. And I bet if we tell it my way it will not only sound better, but that we won't pay a cent in the whole night."

"I guess you're right, and it might improve the chances of me finding some company for the weekend, so wh…"

It was then when Abrams saw in his peripheral vision a thin hand stab Miles in his arm with something, something white and red: Miles swiftly retired the object, but before he could identify it the effects made themselves obvious, he was trying to speak, but for some reason no sound came from his mouth. Despite the fact that there wasn't any blood and the wound was as far as possible from an organ or anything vital, in just a few horrifying seconds his eyes just rolled and he was down like a puppet with his strings cut.

"If you make any unnecessary move I will kill you."

The voice that said that was cold, colder than the Rangers, with Capital R, he picked up in the middle of the desert after playing games of cat and mouse with the Republican Guard. Almost instantly he himself felt a needle like object almost piercing his flight suit.

Then he finally realized what the object that had been on his partner arm. A dart, a goddamned tranquilizer dart that those idiotic rangers left inside his chopper after Miles prohibited using them on the family; and the morons had to left them behind, they just couldn't be bothered to carry those with them. 'I hope that Yogi eats those rangers in the way back,' he mercilessly thought.

"Tell me where in world are we, and which are the coordinates of your base. If you do then you may get to see another day."

And now he had the eldest daughter of the family on his six where he couldn't defend himself, the supposedly sane one, menacing him with enough juice to stop a crack addict in his tracks; and on the one place where those darts were as lethal as a machine gun.

"Look, Daria right? Why don't we talk about this? Your parents and sister need medical attention, you too need help. And if I fell asleep with a tranquilizer dart then I will not be able to take them to the hospital. So why don't you calm down and lower that dart before someone gets hurt? Please?"

"As if I would believe the words of a dirty traitor for even one single second; where did the commies get you from? Fifth Air Force, Air America, or maybe you decided to turn on your comrades rather than expend a night on the Hanoi Hilton?"

It was useless, she was talking nonsense. Before he could say something else he managed to see her face in the rear-view mirror, and her dilated pupils were more than enough to freeze his blood. She had the crazies, the glitterberry crazies!

"Look kid, you ate some hallucinogen berries in the forest, they took longer to have an effect, but now you're having delusions. I'm not a traitor, I proudly served twelve years in the army, and I've served another four in the county's Emergency Response Unit. Please, now I'm going to call to the base and tell them that I'm taking you wherever you want."

"So that they sent a couple of Migs to blow us out of the sky? No, give me the coordinates and then land in the first clearing."

He decided to do as she told him, a fight in the middle of the air could easily be fatal, even if she used her hands instead of one of those thrice cursed darts. While he descended to a more reasonable altitude he kept talking. Maybe he could gain her trust long enough to slap that toy out of her hands?

"I promise you that no one will hurt you in any way whatsoever. But about your question, we're roughly in the border line between the counties of Oakwood and Lawndale. Look, I'm going to land th…"

He didn't felt the needle penetrating as much as the creepy feeling of its payload entering his body. He had scant seconds before whatever sleep inducing concoction they filled the dart with would make effect so he dived as steep as the machine would allow him, aiming for the nearest clearing he could see. Worst case scenario only the people inside the craft would die.

Then came stabilizing the helicopter for the landing, a basic maneuver that can be performed after a few hours in the simulator; even completely losing the sense of balance wouldn't impede a pilot from landing, that's why Jimmy Doolittle had invented the navigation by instruments. Unless of course the sense of sight is lost midflight, and with it both the instruments readings and the ground itself. Now he could only put his faith in his memory and his instincts to perform a crash landing instead of just a crash, even as his hands felt numb and unresponsive and the engine chocked from the hard maneuvers and the extreme handling of the throttle and the collective lever to reduce their air speed at the last second.

By the time they hit the ground he was completely unresponsive.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

When the world stopped moving and the G-forces finally stopped pushing her from one side to another Melody groaned; even if her own voice was covered by the desperate cries of the rest of the passengers. This wasn't her worst air accident by far, but every crash was horrible in its own unique way, from the anticipation of knowing that your Cessna is going to crash in the middle of Cambodia and being unable to do nothing about it to the way the peace suddenly shattered when on a routine high altitude transport you're hit by a Surface to Air missile of a supposedly friendly nation. To know that this particular incident was her fault just made it worse.

She had screwed up. Just as she had expected the pilot had been quite cooperative when under the treat of being given a place in the elevator to hell and he was complying her orders and descending to find a proper place to land, but then her balance had failed her and she had pushed the needle hard enough for it to unleash the pharmaceutics inside. Even when she had just as fast removed the dart, the quantity injected had been more than enough to knock out the pilot.

Luckily the man, while a pathetic Black Ops soldier was contracted for his magnificent skills at piloting; and in a maneuver as complex as she had ever seen he had done an extreme dive to reduce the altitude and then somehow bleed the speed and landed safely against all odds; and only in the span of about ten seconds or less.

Even then the roughness of the landing was enough to let her ribs loudly complain once more, and she was sure that she would be dead with a broken neck if she hadn't been properly secured by her seatbelt, for that matter the rest of the prisoners were still alive, and by the acrid smell at least one or more had soiled themselves, thanks to their own sets of restrains. But since they were still crying and screaming she considers them healthy enough, as least when ignoring the torture they already suffered. Likewise the pilots in the front had survived the crash, not even having the decency of saving her the effort of killing them herself.

Having little time to waste she unhooked herself from the seatbelt and immediately opened the door to escape the downed craft only taking the clothes on her back and the black box that contained the tranquilizer rifle that her enemies used to capture her.

Once she was outside she was able to rein her reasonable impulse of running to the nearest cover, and besides there wasn't one close enough in case the helicopter blew up anyways, and instead hastily examined at the helicopter to evaluate the damage. I wasn't too bad, its skids were crushed, and its tail was damaged by the impact, plus the frontal windshield was cracked, but there wasn't the characteristic smell of leaking fuel and not a single spark anywhere. It could probably be able to fly again if there wasn't any structural damage.

She would have as much time as needed to gather provisions and then torch it.

It was a shame that she couldn't wait until the animals that captured her were awake before doing it. At it was she would have to cut the throats of their victims to prevent a horrible death while those two slept like babies. If there was even the slightest chance of survival she would take them with her, at least the young girl, but with their minds on their current state, the commies would capture them all in a matter of hours, and the only outcome would be another round of torture followed by a bullet, if they were lucky. The only humane thing to do was to end it quickly and as painlessly as possible.

While thinking of her next movement she hasn't been idle, she had gone and checked on the sleeping pilots, measuring their necks for the moment she could find a rock sharp enough. Just to be safe she turned off the engines, an action that was far more complex that she thought possible by her inability to find the ignition. As a fairly competent pilot of both powered aircraft and gliders she should have been familiar enough with the cockpit to find it instantly, but for some reason she couldn't recall her training at all.

While searching for the ignition she emptied their pockets in an attempt to find some more clues of what had happened. The older man had in his wallet a few bills and couple of photos, the first one of him with a woman and two children a little younger than the teen in the back. How could he do this and still went home with a family? The other picture was of an aircraft crew in front of a military helo painted in desert camouflage. It was evidence that he served in the Middle East, maybe in Afghanistan against the reds, probably where they recruited him. The younger only had a few more bucks and a couple of condoms that she kept just in case, those were vital to protect a gun from the climate.

Then she checked for additional clues and gear in the baggage compartment, in there she found a duffel bag filled with clothes a little too small, probably from the girl, a surprisingly well supplied first aid pack, optimized for trauma and once more her knowledge failed her when trying to identify the purpose of some of the drugs and devices in the pack. She took some dressings and bandages, Paracetamol and all the codeine in the kit, even some Lidocaine gel was added after hastily rubbing a little on her chest to relieve the pain; a utility knife which she let at arms reach in one of her pockets, some disposable gloves also went to the bag, and smelling salts, those were used frequently in her line of work. From another compartment she extracted a flare gun with three white flares. It wasn't a GOOD (Get Out Of Dodge) kit but it would do.

Then she realized something; unlike what she would have expected from a soviet craft, the lettering of the copter wasn't written in Cyrillic, neither the language was Farsi, or glyphs characteristic from Asian languages; it was written in plain old English. In any other circumstances she would have assumed that it was an attempt of hiding their operations under the flag of an American or British organization, but then why use the Oakwood's Emergency Response Unit.

A unit like a county's ERU wasn't capable of doing nothing on its own, they couldn't cross state borders, much less used for contraband, they didn't have the flight priority for cover missions or the freedom of movement to go where they please, and even a state trooper would laugh any attempt of them to muscle their way, an helicopter working for a organization like that would raise suspicions in almost every activity imaginable other than SAR, and even then someone would realize that there were more choppers than usual in the air.

The only thing that made sense is that it probably was a local operation, therefore the pilot had told her the truth and they were somewhere in the middle of the U.S. it meant that there was hope for the family. Now she could call for the cavalry and they would be able to take care of them while she worked into unraveling this particular mystery.

She then checked the phone, it battery was half charged so she tried to call the local office of the Farm, a place masquerading as a Pizza King.

"Pizza King, where you reign over all flavor. How can I serve you?"

"Good afternoon, I want an EBA, and a diet coke."

"An EBA, could you repeat your order please?" Melody frowned, that wasn't the correct code phrase.

"An EBA, Everything but Anchovies, are you sure do not have it on the menu?"

"No sorry, do you want something else." The voice on the other side sounded annoyed

"Could you pass me the manager; I really would like an EBA." In theory her call would be transferred to a secure line.

"Damn morons, stop doing prank calls!" When the attendant hanged the phone Melody felt as if they had hanged her from the Kremlin. She hadn't said any of the pre-established code phrases, neither for communicating her with the agent on guard nor to indicate that something was wrong. Even on the case of enemy action, they would have tried to keep the line open as long as possible to track the call and limiting her movements.

She decided to throw caution to the wind and introduce a long, long string of numbers in the phone, thirty seven digits to be precise, so different from the current numbering for national and international calls that a monkey with a dial could have a better chance of stumbling into it that a human ever could. The code would also bypass the phone companies altogether, connecting her to the main headquarters of the Farm.

"This number does not exist, please check the number or call to our offices…"

The HQ wasn't responding, and that could only mean that either Nomad Protocols were on operation or that there wasn't anyone left to talk. Either was a synonym of an attack on intelligence facilities in the Continental United States, in other words, an act of war.

'And that means that I need to get out of here as fast as I can.' She thought, and then added a little louder. "But first I need to deal with some loose ends."

The family, that until now had been talking amongst themselves, more like rambling, about dogs, wishes and the moon, or something like that grew silent without any prompting when she opened the front passenger door and with a sharp movement took the head of the young man, Miles his badge said, and left his neck exposed. The other hand with the knife ready.

He was the one that probably had raped the woman, and therefore he was going to be the first to die. Now she just needed to perform a single, clean, cut. Like dozens of times before, just turning the artery to the side to avoid splatter and…

"NO, KIDDO, NO!"

"_How's the old self-esteem coming, kiddo?"_

"_My self-esteem teacher says that being addressed all my life with childish epithets like 'kiddo' is probably a key source of my problem." Her remark was done with both sarcasm and a monotone that betrayed no emotions._

"_Really?" His dad sounded sincerely worried about it._

"_No."_

"_Isn't she great? She's the greatest." He laughed as her joke, even if he wasn't sure she was joking._

Where did that memory come from?

"No! … No! … No! … No! … No!"

"nonononononono"

"Noooooeww"

They were trying to stop her, these men tortured them to the point they weren't able to say their names, and they wanted to stop her.

"I won't kill him" It was their right to decide, not hers.

"Suck it Mad Dog! I'm better than you!"

She still couldn't let them free so she used her own restrains to hold the veteran pilot tight, and then some cables that she removed from one of the maintenance doors to tie his partner on the hands legs, and as painful as she could from the neck, using a hook for IV drops to not quite hang him.

"I call for help as soon as I reach the road. I'm sorry I can't do more."

Their landing zone was a beautiful flower field with a clear vision of about a mile and not a single man made structure nearby, farther away a hill masked their position from prying eyes. And if her calculations were accurate from what she had seen from the chopper's windows, a road was beyond it.

She would arrive to the road in about thirty-forty minutes at a brisk pace.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **


	3. Walking home

Operation Glitterberries 02: Walking home

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The pace that Melody had chosen for walking towards the hill was one that would take her to the hills and the security of the forest in a matter of minutes. She could have run there, on her college days she did the mile in four minutes, but she was burdened by her GOOD bag and she didn't know the extent of her injuries yet so she instead jogged to the woods.

Less that a few yards later she felt as if instead of jogging she had been running flat out. She still persevered; while stopping and smelling the daisies was tempting, if an enemy chopper came here to search for its buddy then the daisies would have to be used to decorate her deep, deep grave (the rumor that she had dug her way out of a shallow grave had spread around the intelligence community, now she was supposed to be cremated after execution).

She was completely out of breath when she reached the relative safety of the trees, as soon as she arrived her lags gave out under her and she had to half walk, half crawl on the nearest bush. 'That was pathetic; I have done better with a broken leg in the middle of the everglades.' She thought; she would have screamed in frustration but she needed the air. To decrease the soreness she was feeling she started rubbing her legs…

Her legs; there was something wrong with them; they were shorter and less toned than they had been when she was eight… These weren't her legs.

And finally all the little clues that she had been ignoring in favor of more pressing concerns came to the fore. The way her reach had decreased, the weakness she had been noticing when hauling her recently acquired stuff. Even the chest she hadn't felt when rubbing the unguent on her ribs. She removed the glasses that were on her face and the trees became brown and green blurs; she had been blaming the drugs on her system for her reduced eyesight, but it seemed that the eyes themselves were to blame.

"This… this is not my body." The words leave her lips almost against her will, there wasn't any other reasonable answer, but it sounded crazier that even the utter nonsense that was published by James Bond. Not even Codename: 707 had faced something as weird in his literary career.

'Stop. Think about something useful, leave imagination for the mission report. Okay, under which circumstances, no matter how improbable, someone would try to transform me from a lean mean special agent into a tiny girl with bad eyesight?'

The first probability was that she had been transformed as a sick form of payback by one of her enemies. Sheng Lok, the ruler of the New Kingdom of Siam for example had enough money to do so, plus he probably was still angry about her freeing the thousand or so concubines from his harem. But he had neither the power nor the smarts to establish an operation in the states, much less one capable of taking down the Farm. The ones that did had the ability to do such a complex operation wouldn't play games, they would put a bullet in the back of her head followed by a dozen more and then a few gallons of napalm just to be sure.

The other possibility was that she volunteered for the operation, the West has the best Plastic Surgeons in the world, and this body was without any doubt the perfect disguise, she could go in front of her mother and she wouldn't be able to recognize her. And that's not counting the fact that someone with her physic would be the last person suspected to be a highly trained veteran agent. No sane person would cripple herself like this before going into the wolf's maw, but if there was the clear threat of an enemy organization operating in the heart of America she would step forward for her duty, no matter the personal cost.

And for the eyes she could think of two reasons right off the bat, the first one was that whoever was doing this had a biometric scanner which included her profile, considering how many times she had been captured, a retinal scan wasn't out of question; the other reason was that maybe someone messed up her eyes, in which case he would probably do a donation of his own eyes as soon as she remembered who was at fault.

Having recovered her breath in one point or another of her musings, she decided to keep moving towards her destination once more, this time walking as fast as she felt comfortable. It just wouldn't do to force herself and finding that when she needed to run there was no juice left. She used the time afforded by the slow pace to better check the papers that were inside the Duffel bag, those might give her a clue of what was going on, and how did she got in this mess in the first place.

Starting with the credit cards and Driver's licenses inside, they belonged to the adults in the chopper, a Helen Morgendorffer and a Jake Morgendorffer; probably married and unless she was mistaken they were the parents of the teen. Then she saw a student's I.D., the name on it was Quinn Morgendorffer and the photo confirmed her supposition, she was their daughter. The roll of dollars she found alongside them didn't improve her mood too much, that family was for all intents and purposes destroyed.

Then she checked the opposite side pocket, this one contained a notebook, a pen and a few knick knacks of no consequence. The notebook and its contents were extremely interesting by themselves. While she couldn't read it in deep for obvious reasons, it held a combination of poetry, both limericks and darker content; long paragraphs of prose which depicted everything from the idiocy of football to a very detailed description of the collapse of a human pyramid. The last one was accompanied by two sets of illustrations, one a set of doodles full of blood and pieces, and another far more elaborate with a girl in pigtails drawn midfall.

Further contemplations about the notebook were put on hold when another student card felt from it. This time she didn't recognize the picture, even if she felt as if she should recognize the brunette on her green jacket and her big, round… "Glasses." Upon that revelation her hands when instantly toward her face, tracing with her finger the contour of her own spectacles and unless she was mistaken they matched. She was also wearing the same green jacket. This clinched it, this must have been a long term undercover assignment gone wrong. But why as a student?

"Who are you Daria Morgendorffer?"

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The world didn't revolve around Melody Powers, no matter how often if fate was on her hands, but in moments like this it did look like it.

Twenty minutes before the estimated time of arrival of the Parrot2 Medevac Mission the ground personnel of the Emergency Response Unit sent a radio message to the crew of Parrot2 reporting that the ambulances had already arrived to the heliport and that they would be on stand-by to take the victims as soon as they landed. The lack of response was the first sign that something was wrong with the flight.

After several failed calls the people of the county's ERU called the heliport's control tower and told them about their concerns. While the personnel of the tower weren't worried, captain Abrams was a veteran pilot with an excellent record; they checked his return flight plan. If nothing beyond a broken radio had happened, then it would be a matter of time for them to arrive. If not, then they would have to clean the dust out of several emergency procedures.

While waiting for the countdown for the helicopter's ETA to expire the members of the ERU tried calling the chopper on different frequencies, just in case the craft's radio was tuned on an incorrect one. When after the allotted time they didn't appear the control tower gave them another twenty; they had been a flying with a slight headwind, plus captain Abrams was a sucker for children and maybe he decided to take the scenic route to comfort the girl who had such a horrible weekend.

When that time limit was also surpassed the emergency manuals were finally opened, and a general alert was sent to the emergency services of the county. Parrot3 was removed from its current duty supporting police crowd control operations for the classic Oakwood-Lawndale Football match and was sent to backtrack his brother's estimated flight path.

Most of the personnel knew that they would have a hard time finding their comrade, the time between the last call from Abrams and the point they realized something was wrong surpassed the hour, and that in terms of distance was a radio of up to 120 miles.

Two and a half hours after the disappearance of Parrot2 the first clue came from one 911 call.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Two hours! It had taken her two hours to reach the road. Three times the amount of time estimated. If old Virginia Hall ever heard of this she would chase her all around the Farm's training fields and whenever she caught her she would kick her ass, and considering that right now she believed that one legged octogenarian woman would outrun her the feeling of the wooden leg would hurt far less than her ego.

But now she was close enough to the road, and she could hear the cars from her vantage point. Now would be the perfect time to do the phone call to the authorities, there were people in need of help, and a couple of traitors whom the FBI would really love to have a word or two.

Making sure that she was out of sight she dialed 911 and waited for a human operator to respond.

"911, please state your emergency."

"I would like to report the crash landing of the ERU helicopter N6022-S."

"Could you tell me your name and repeat that please?"

Melody ignored the first part of the question, focusing on the rest. "The Helicopter with the registration number November 6-0-2-2- dash Sierra crashed in the border between the counties of Lawndale and Oakwood at eleven hundred hours, about four and a half miles northeast of the road, they're in the middle of a flower field, daisies I think, easy to identify from the air. For more accurate coordinates I would suggest that you tract this call."

"Do you know the status of the passengers?"

"There are five survivors trapped inside, three of them are civilians and they were out of danger the last time I saw, but they will require medical and psychological attention ASAP."

"As for former U.S. Army captain John Abrams and his copilot Henry Miles I believe that if you call the federal authorities you might find something interesting on their records, treason, and terrorism unless I'm mistaken."

"Terrorism?" She could hear the disbelief in the voice of the operator, after all most people could expend their whole life without being touched by terrorism while growing in Israel, and in the middle of the United States it was a much rarer phenomenon, but she only needed for him to listen, the truth would come out once they could see the discrepancies.

"And kidnapping, assault and use of illegal substances; although those are fairly recent events and considering the sloppy execution I doubt that they have any priors."

She decided that since she wasn't going to be able to cover her survival, then she would go the opposite route, feeding the system as much information as she had on her enemies. From their reactions, both public and otherwise she would be able to see just how deep the rot was.

"Dear are you sure about that!"

'Dear huh, do I sound that young?' Melody pounded while giving the dispatcher the relevant data. "About the kidnapping yes, after all I was there"

"Wait, are you telling me that you were there, in the crash?"

"First row seat."

"Okay, I… Help is on the way, just sit down, calm yourself and tell me your name. Everything is going to be all right."

"Melody Powers, at your service. Sorry but I have some prior commitments, so I'll have to decline. Goodbye"

"No please, wait! We can talk about it…"

Giving her Nom de guerre was a calculated risk, if they didn't know the true identity of her alter ego Daria, know there was any doubt. But she needed to stir the hornet nest to force her enemy to commit a mistake. She would try to contact Chuck Meyer later, he always knew hoe to provoke a feeding frenzy with his fellow reporters, but for know she wouldn't dare to put his favorite gay in any danger.

After hanging the phone she took the battery and threw it way, then using her knife to open the casing she methodically gutted the cell until reaching the circuits which she crushed with the help of her boots. Then she walked towards the road and pointed her thumb up in the American gesture for hitchhiking.

The first five cars were busts, it was good to know that people in the States wasn't as trustful as before, and that they did at least try to obey the local laws regarding hitchhiking, but in this occasion she had a limited amount of time, and she was already getting desperate enough to try to hijack a vehicle.

Then a silver sedan finally stopped, on the wheel was a black haired man in his late thirties dressed on a tweed jacket. Melody was immediately repulsed by the lewd looks he was throwing her way, but she suppressed her own disgusted frown with practical ease born of years of infiltrating the worst scum that crawled out of communist cesspools in the East.

She stepped inside as soon as he opened the passenger door and now she was playing the desperate and tired girl, an act that on this occasion was closer to reality that she cared to think about.

"Thank god, I thought that no one was going to stop."

"I wouldn't dare to leave a budding woman like you in such a lonely place. Tell me my precious blossom, which is your name?"

"Oh my, where are my manners? My name is Abigail Hall, can I ask yours sir?" Unless she was wrong he was the kind of man that preferred his women demure, so she gave him as demure a woman as she had never been on her life.

"Please don't call me sir, I'm Ken Edwards to your service, but you can call me Ken. Can I ask you where are you heading?"

"Sure thing… Ken. I'm going to Lawndale..." Then she hastily added, as if she was worried about him dropping her if their paths diverted. "But I just need to get to the nearest bus station, I'll manage from there. Really."

"Don't worry my dear, it seems that destiny is favorable to us, I live in Lawndale, and it will be my pleasure to get you there." She would have been happier about getting straight to her destiny if he hadn't chosen that moment to start stroking her hair.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Mike was worried, unlike on many other different jobs, his position as a 911 dispatcher meant that the best days were the ones boring as hell, when he only had to fill or read reports of previous calls, answer the common incoming pregnancies and nonviolent crimes, with the old grandpa who just wanted to hear a voice from time to time, even prank calls from idiotic children were a relief compared to the real thing. The problem was that this day was anything but boring.

The previous shift had already to coordinate a complex rescue operation involving the ERU and the local park rangers, using both air and ground support. Thankfully the rescue ended being much easier than expected, with minimum injuries. But even then they had to turn back the remaining thirty men that were going to joint the advance team by land.

And then just almost as soon as he sat down on his post an emergency message had been sent to all emergency and law enforcement on the county, the ERU helicopter of that particular operation had vanished without a trace. He was struck, while he hadn't met cap Abrams in person he knew his voice better than his own, and now he, his EMT and another four souls were lost without then being able to even say a peep on the radio.

Then his computer screen registered a call, and he left his concerns for another time, he needed to give all of his attention to whoever was on the other side of the line.

"911, please state your emergency."

"I would like to report the crash landing of the ERU helicopter N6022-S."

'Oh my God!' Only his training and experience was enough to stop him from voicing that out loud. Did the girl on the phone decided to do a prank call about the lost of some of his comrades? As far as he knew the disappearance had yet to be released to the newsies. There was no way anyone not in uniform would know about that, much less joke about it.

"Could you tell me your name and repeat that please?"

"The Helicopter with the registration number November 6-0-2-2- dash Sierra crashed in the border between the counties of Lawndale and Oakwood at eleven hundred hours, about four and a half miles northeast of the road, they're in the middle of a flower field, daisies I think, easy to identify from the air. For more accurate coordinates I would suggest that you tract this call."

In a violent movement he cleaned his desk of all papers by throwing them to the floor, only the report sent by the heliport remained. And now he was seeing with his own eyes that the registration number that the girl was dictating matched with the data, as well as the rest of the facts. The only way she could have known all that was that she was a witness of the accident; an accident in which six persons had been involved.

"Do you know the status of the passengers?"

"There are five survivors trapped inside, three of them are civilians and they were out of danger the last time I saw, but they will require medical and psychological attention ASAP."

The report was short and concise, it told him in a short sentence the status and requirements of the five survivors, but there had been six in there, leaving one unaccounted for. Before he could ask about the fate of the remaining passenger she continued with her report.

"As for former U.S. Army captain John Abrams and his copilot Henry Miles I believe that if you call the federal authorities you might find something interesting on their records, treason, and terrorism unless I'm mistaken."

"Terrorism?" Now he could not stop the disbelief from his voice, no matter the amount of sensibility and psychological courses he had received in the last few years.

"And kidnapping, assault and use of illegal substances; although those are fairly recent events and considering the sloppy execution I doubt that they have any priors."

"Dear are you sure about that!" He was right to disbelieve such wild accusations, Abrams was a vet, and his service record talked by itself of what kind of man John is.

"About the kidnapping yes, after all I was there"

"Wait, are you telling me that you were there, in the crash?" If she was one of the victims then there was a high possibility that she was in shock, and that her life might be in as much danger as the ones trapped there.

"First row seat."

"Okay, I… Help is on the way, just sit down, calm yourself and tell me your name. Everything is going to be all right."

"Melody Powers, at your service. Sorry but I have some prior commitments, so I'll have to decline. Goodbye"

"No please, wait! We can talk about it…"

He heard the computer's alert about the end of the call, but he didn't let it continue before directing all his energies to deal with the emergency on hand. Thinking about Melody, or what could happen to she wasn't going to help neither her nor the rest of the victims.

In a moment he had the ERU's other chopper redirected to the Lawndale-Oakwood border while one of the other dispatcher was calling to the nearest firehouse to send there an engine filled to the brim with rescue personnel and their jaws of life, air bags and other power tools to pry open even the most stubborn wreck in the world.

His next step was to take the recommendation given by her and track the 911 call not only to find the crash site, but to see if she was still on the same place. It was a no-go, the call had been made from a cell, and the automatic tracker program didn't work with those. So he did the next best thing and called the cell company and begged for their help. For once understanding the seriousness of the matter they forgone the need of a warrant and gave him the location of the tower where the call originated from.

Armed with that information and the precise directions Melody gave to him he was able to direct Parrot3 to the estimated place of the crash, and now after another thirty minutes he could only wait.

"Parrot3 here, we have arrived to the coordinates, commencing search pattern."

…

"Parrot3 here, we see Parrot2 in the middle of a field, I can't see any damage to the craft from this position, I'll land next to it…"

…

"Dispatch, we have five survivors inside, we are removing them from Parrot2 and establishing a triage…"

They had managed to find all of them alive, and now as soon as the rest of the men arrived they would find the missing fifth girl, and with a little bit of luck then… His mussing was stopped cold by the next part of the radio message.

"… Dispatch… Mike, contact the police, something weird happened here, something really weird."


	4. Honey Trap

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 03: Honey Trap

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"And tell me why such a beautiful nymph like you was walking alone in the road?"

He had been returning from Oakwood after another editor had rejected his latest book, 'why couldn't she recognize real talent?', when he had found her like a spirit coming out of the woods her jacket in one hand and a huge bag on her shoulder, all dirty and sweaty but with a radiant energy flowing of her young nubile body.

"My boyfriend, he thinks I'm a bore, that I only like poetry and books and not other fun things. So he told me that we were going to have a picnic, and then he let me there in the middle of the road. I could hear him laughing as he drove away." He could see tears flowing out of her eyes at the remembrance of that bitter memory.

His new found flower was such a sensitive soul, she shared at least one of his own passions and this demonstrated that they were surely destined to be joined.

"Oh my dear, that's the folly of young. Let me tell you, if literature and poetry weren't the greatest ways for human's imagination to soar free would I be a writer?"

"You're a writer?" He congratulated himself; by sharing a little bit of his own life experience she had abandoned her sadness. If he shared more, how fast would she blossom into a woman?

"Yes, I'm in the process of writing a novel right now, it's about a slightly older, sensitive man and the love a budding woman child feels for him when she gets to know him better."

"Oh, it sounds so enlightening. Have you written anything else? Maybe I have read you before."

"Regrettably while I have already written another book about the joys of a young woman joining her destiny with an older man when they got trapped in the middle of a desert island after a shipwreck, the editors I have met aren't capable of discern the genius of my works. So I'm forced to work as a literature teacher. But even that is a blessing in disguise, to be around so many ladies in the onset of their womanhood present me with a plethora of chances to better help them reach their own potential."

"Please tell me more…"

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

As soon as Mike had called with new coordinates for the search of Parrot2 Jimmy 'the voyeur' Stokes had redirected his helicopter and headed there at cruising speed, holding back the temptation of going at full speed, the fuel might be needed for the combing the area.

The ERU's air support community was as tight as it was small, with only two helicopters to their name, the lack of enough personnel created some lasting bonds; the pilots and their crews knew each other by name, every one was there to lend a hand were needed with the pilots often helping the grease monkeys with the maintenance, the EMT were trained to be replacement crewmembers and help with instrument readings, and at the end of their shift all got to the same bar for a beer together. Also when they lost one of their own they grieved and worried together, just like now.

It was his fault…

As a pilot he had proudly earned the nickname of voyeur not by being a pervert, although he did liked to flash the kids at the Make-out Lane with his searchlight just to watch them scramble like headless chickens, but by his excellent sight and the ability to see and understand the action occurring many yards bellow as if he was just in front seat, without the need of binoculars or slowing down his craft. And he loved football so whenever there was a game that needed to be overflown he always lobbied for the position; and in this occasion it meant that when the call for a long range rescue mission came, John had to take the call instead of him, even if today was his turn.

It had been a great game, Oakwood trounced the Lawndale Lions so hard that hey were little more than pussies when the whistle sounded. He should know; he had without any doubt the best seat of the competence, just above the heads of the players. He even credited himself with an interception when he had zoomed in low in the exact moment when the Lawndale High Quarterback was doing a move, distracting him in just the right moment, an act that would win him many beers on the night.

And it wasn't worth the life of his friend.

"Parrot3 here, we have arrived to the coordinates, commencing search pattern."

He took a route parallel to the closest road; the 911 call had mentioned a flower field, about four miles from the road. So he went searching in that general direction; amongst his objectives there was not only the helicopter, even if it was his main priority, but also a young girl of unknown description who had called in the crash and was believed to be a survivor suffering from shock.

And there it was, just as the call had described Parrot2 was sitting in the middle of the flower field, surrounded by yellow daisies. As far as he was concerned it was a beautiful sight, the helicopter sat there in surprisingly good condition; when he was told that there were trapped people inside his mind couldn't help but to conjure nightmarish images of twisted steel.

"Parrot3 here, we see Parrot2 in the middle of a field, I can't see any damage to the craft from this position, I'll land next to it…"

Doing that was easy, the field was almost a perfect landing zone, with soft and level black soil which allowed his helicopter a smooth landing a few feet away from the other helicopter, and it probably contributed to the low amount of damage their sister craft has sustained.

As soon as the skids touched the ground Ellie, his designated EMT and girlfriend jumped out of her seat and ran straight to the accident, no doubt spurned by the cries they could hear inside, he joined her the moment he turned off the engine. What he saw inside the chopper was not was he expected.

Instead of barely not yet bodies trapped by the misshapen and compressed frame of a damaged craft the civvies inside were restrained by straps and leather cuffs, nothing accidental on that and their screams weren't as much pain as raw madness. And in the front seat John was likewise tucked in a similar way than the passengers, but what caught his attention was Ellie holding the head of Henry while shouting at him.

"Quickly, cut him down. Now!"

Then he realized why she was holding him like that; he was hanging from the neck, and the wire that formed his noose was cutting his throat, through all that he could hear his shallow and labored breath.

"Come on, while I hold him!" Doing as told he took the wire and unhook it from its hanger, releasing the pressure and allowing Henry to breathe more normally.

With some additional effort between Ellie and him they cut the rest of his fastenings and let him lie on the ground, then while his girlfriend did the basic check-up he went to the other side of the cockpit and started removing Abrams restrains when he stirred and half opened his eyes.

"John, John. Wake up buddy, its going to be okay."

"glitterberry…" John was slurring badly and it seemed that even talking required a supreme effort.

"John, calm down I'm here

"crazies… dange..us"

"We got the three inside; they're still delirious but alive and restrained."

"No! girl… green… dangerous."

"Girl dangerous? Dispatch told us about a possible survivor who escaped the crash and was in shock, are you talking about her?"

"Dangerous… crazy …berries"

He then looked at the rest of the passengers in the chopper and Jimmy just understood.

"Oh my god!"

"Dispatch, we have five survivors inside, we are removing them from Parrot2 and establishing a triage…"

The girl who made the call wasn't in shock, or at least not 'only' in shock, somehow she was responsible for the crash, and doing that while inside meant that she had poor impulse control. And then she had done that thing with the wire to Henry…

"… Dispatch… Mike, contact the police, something weird happened here, something really weird."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

While waiting on the bed of the motel Ken did his best to contain his excitement, he needed to be the mature and skilled lover for Abigail, after many years of theorizing on how the love of a man in the peak of his life would allow a girl to become a woman, he wanted to make her first time even more memorable that the fact that she slept with Ken Edwards.

After he picked her up in the middle of the woods of Oakwood and discovering that her destination was the same one as his, they had expended the whole day together. He had told her about his passion for teaching little ladies about literature and the value of experience. In exchange she had told him about that bastardly boyfriend of hers and how he had harmed her self-esteem. The beauty of young was wasted on childish boys if that barbarian couldn't see pass the glasses, to bask on her radiance.

In that moment he had decided that it was his duty, nay, his privilege to nurse this carnelian back to health, and then encourage so that she could blossom in his arms.

The first step of her treatment had been to invite her to the picnic she never had, as a way of redoing the wrongs done to her. For that purpose they went to the Payday warehouse in the nearest town. While Abigail was nursing her feet on the car, 'just how much did the poor girl had to walk before I found her?', he went and bought some fried chicken, Ultra cola, some mild wine and a bottle of stronger spirits to help her overcome her natural shyness. He also brought her a lovely straw hat with a white bow that for some reason was for sale in the pet's section. Oh, how much would he pay for seeing her in a sundress!

Then he had found an adequate spot far enough of the road and started the belated picnic. She had been impressed by his witty commentaries of the deficiencies of young men, and then after a satisfying meal he regaled she with selected passages of the manuscript that his that had been rejected by the publisher from Oakwood, the enthusiasm with which she had received it just underlined the folly of that old woman who called herself an editor and was jealous that she had been unable to find true love in her young.

The success of the reading was commemorated with a toast, him with the whisky and she with the wine. The innocent smiles as he stroked her hair and held her hand on his was something he would cherish forever.

And then when they had entered Lawndale's city limits and they had drove near a motel she had in a moment of true courage pleaded him to go there and to be her first. He could not deny the supreme effort she had needed to overcome her shyness and to seek him to replace the painful memories of a childish boyfriend with ones of a caring lover.

While she waited on the car on his bereft, the uncultured masses weren't yet capable of understanding the needs of the young nymphs and were prone to reach wrong conclusions, when his books finally came out of the presses it would teach them different but for now he would just have to be careful. He reserved a full night, there were many lessons to be taught and then went inside with her.

And then as soon as they entered she had asked him to turn around, unwilling to scare her he complied, getting more and more exited as he heard the fall of pieces of clothing from behind him. And then the sound of soft barefoot steps, he was about to turn when he felt a slight prick, and then the whole world just spin around.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody was glad that at last she could get rid of Ken. While he had been instrumental in avoiding any blockade that her enemies could set, he was also one of the single most infuriating men she had ever met.

From the go he was more than willing to seduce her, saving her the effort of attempting to do the same to him, even if their final goals were too different. She just had to make him believe that his clumsy words and his disgusting habit of putting his hands on others people's hair.

Then after she had spun her story of cruel boyfriend and a picnic turned into drama he had somehow gotten the idea that they needed to have a picnic to in his own words: 'help her heal from the treacherous actions of that foolish child.' Since she felt herself starving, she agreed to his suggestion.

The spot he chose to park was in a secluded part more of less in the side of the store, where she would be able to flee to the rest of the town after climbing the fence. Since she wanted to avoid the security cameras inside she had pleaded sore feet and stayed inside, just asking for a cap to supposedly covering from the sun during their picnic, but in truth to conceal herself better. While waiting for him she entertained herself by reading the registration and insurance papers of the car, memorizing his address just in case she had a chance to go there later and murder him.

She hadn't been amused when he returned with one of those hats for horses, but to her eternal frustration she had to hid it and accept the present with a smile on her face.

The picnic itself was a form of torture that not even the Chinese sadists of Mao's couldn't have thought about, for starters while ravaging her chicken he had talked non stop of his superiority as a man and lover to the boys more around her apparent age. That had been bad but tolerable but then he decided to read out loud parts of his so called masterpiece. In fact it was a semi-pornographic trashy novella where he trapped a girl in a desert island with a badly concealed version of himself and then went off like bunnies while mangling the English language in terrible ways.

The toast she had make to shut him off was worthy drinking that cheap wine which made her long for her own cellar and her reserved stash. All while he kept stroking her hair like a dog.

But as they arrived to Lawndale she had seen a chance for a safe place to sleep and a way of getting a modicum of payback and she had seized it. Doing her best lustful look she had asked him to go to a motel nearby, she had even used her nonexistent virginity as bait, and he just felt for it, line hook and sinker.

Just as she expected he had declined her offer of going with him to the reception desk, knowing that there were at least even odds that the manager would call the police if he saw a grown man with a young teen, which her body looked at the moment.

Then after he returned and they sneaked into the room she shyly asked him to turn around while she took her own clothes off and prepared the dart she had concealed all the way in case he tried something more than she had been willing to give.

As soon as he collapsed from the effects of the dart, and it had been her third today, half of her supply, she had undressed him; first his shirt that she used to tie him up from the arms and legs after cutting it in half, and then from his pants. Once that was done she splashed whisky all around him.

She was going to measure the time the drugs would knock someone, and if he waked up sooner than she hoped then she would just tell him that they had emulated chapter five of his so called book. Depending of his answer she would decide if killing him was the best choice.

Then just for letting him think that he had some action she kicked him between the legs, regrettably he was sedated so his cry of pain barely registered, but at least he would be sore when he waked up and then unwilling to try a second round.

Now she had a secure location to spend the night; no one, not even the man at the reception, knew that she had come here, and therefore no one would call the police nor would be able to track her movements to the city and beyond.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Jane and Trent arrived to their house tired and hoping beyond hope that leaving Aunt Bernice stranded after doing a runner from the family reunion would be enough to disinherit them. After they had arrived to the local airport Trent had exchanged their tickets for the first flight to Middlebury. The mistake was that for saving more or less twenty minutes for the direct flight they had to take instead a tour of all the small airports on three states.

Arriving tired and with a sore butt Jane wished once more that she would have taken Daria's place in the camping trip. No matter just how bad staying three days with princess Quinn would be at least it was the devil they already knew and tortured in return, while her family always traveled with their little piece of hell to torture her and Trent.

As she dived to her bed she wished to have Daria to at least complain about their respective hells, usually the spectacled girl would always won in their little 'I had a worse day than you' games, but this time she was sure of her victory. There just wasn't any way that she could beat the extended Lane family and their transportation woes…

No way at all.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Chapter three is over.

What would a spy story would be without at least an occasion when the Femme Fatale seduce someone?

** I ** II ** III ** IV **


	5. Pit stop

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 04: Pit stop

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

As soon as the satisfaction from kicking a foe that was already on the ground faded she realized that the kick itself lacked the strength and grace that one of her hits should have. Hastily removing the rest of her clothes to avoid any sudden movement impediment she walked in front of an old and dirty mirror and then threw a tried to do a few of her most simple katas.

She didn't even finished the first, it looked so wrong that if told that she had ripped it off from a bad B movie she would have agreed on the spot. But what was worrying her wasn't how bad it looked, but how bad it didn't felt. For a trained martial artist a punch, a kick, even the way they move it's ingrained in the body, if for some reason they don't do a move as the way they learned to do the body let them know that something is not right.

For her body to accept the badly aligned punches and the off-balance kicks it meant that her muscle memory, born of thousands of hours of hard training and hundreds of fights for her life were lost just like that.

That brought home the hardest point of her mission, she didn't know anything. She didn't know who her enemies were; she didn't know who or where were her allies, if she had any; No objectives, targets or even a mission statement. Even her own body was now a mystery to her. Not to mention the fact that her mind was full of holes and she was unsure of even what she was missing.

She needed to change that; she needed to fill the gaps fast, starting with herself. So she stood in front of the same dirty mirror and took off her remaining underwear and then methodically examined every inch of her body. For starters she was small, even when considering that whoever had done this had probably aimed for the age on her I.D., If anything the first word that came to her mind was petite.

Then there was her general fitness, she had already discovered on the woods that her muscles were undeveloped and a few moments ago that whatever procedure done to her took away her muscle memory. Her legs were a little short for her body and she bet they weren't very good for either running or kicking, maybe the reason why she wore such boots, to play to her strengths? Her abdomen was flat enough without needing to suck in her gut, but it lacked any of the muscle development she had enjoyed from her early teens courtesy of a very active childhood. Other than that her body didn't look particularly fit, but neither did she look undernourished nor overweight.

Her hands right now where full of cuts, a natural risk on her line of work, but other than that were almost peerless, with few of the marks that a physical lifestyle would create, the only exception were some callouses on her right hand, her dominant hand. The callouses themselves weren't in a position common to either physical activities nor the ones left by the constant use of a gun, more like the ones that paper-pushers had on the old soviet union from writing forms for long hours for years.

On more general terms she had white skin which was itself of no notable characteristics, neither particularly soft nor rugged by exposition to the elements; she had no noticeable piercings or tattoos. One of the missing characteristics was it utter lack of scarring, something that surprised and saddened her in ways she didn't expected. They had been won in a lifetime of service to the United States and before that on innumerable athletic challenges, and everyone was a milestone in her life, from the time she had broken her arm climbing the oak behind the mansion, to the time when Igor Rossovosky had carved her with his huge knife as she impaled he on hers. Even the many cuts and abrasions caused by the occasions she had been captured and torture were medals of occasions she Would Not Break!

Leaving behind that train of thought she continued examining her breasts, which were smaller than she herself had at her current age, they barely stand out but at least they was visible grown. While the narcissistic segment of her mind missed those beloved parts of her anatomy and the fun she had with her many romantic rendezvouses, she immediately searched for tactical advantages. They weren't going to be the impediment to the acrobatics that came from her line of work, even if she couldn't do most of them in her current state, she would also be able to conceal them easily, allowing her to disguise herself as a boy if necessary.

The only other feature in that area was on her side, a large bruise that was pulsing with every movement she did, even if her ability to breathe probably meant that it wasn't broken after all. Just to be sure she touched it to see how inflamed it was and immediately recoiled from the pain, wincing as she did so. Then she realized what she had done, if that much pain was enough for her to step back then she might as well give up and put a bullet through her brain herself.

With deliberate movements she put her hand back to the bruise and pressed as hard as she could, not relenting even when the tears leaved her eyes and a bout of nausea threatened to overcome her for a moment. But after a few second of excruciating pain the nausea disappeared and she rediscovered the ability to survive being hurt.

Then she examined her face and hair; her hair was cared for, it wasn't oily and she hasn't split ends, and the length and volume of it was impressive if a bit unpractical. She was glad of the good maintenance, during the next few days she would need to curl, straighten, braid, and every other hair styling she could think of to make her appearance as different as possible from whatever photos they had of her. And when that wasn't enough she would need to cut it even if becoming bald and using wigs was what it takes to kept herself free and alive.

And then was her greatest weakness, her eyes and the glasses in front of them. As she had during her trip through the forest she tried taking them off to fully lose the ability to see beyond a few feet away. They reduced her peripheral vision to a dangerous level, were a noticeable feature that anyone would recognize anywhere and she was defenseless without them. If there was a fast way of crippling her it would be to remove them. Her first priority would then be to find an acceptable substitute for them as soon as possible… or at least a few additional frames.

Considering that she was naked anyway she decided to relax and take a bath, so she went for her knife just in case, and entered the bathroom for a long, hot and well deserved shower. She would then decide what to do next.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

She left the shower long after the water got cold, during a mission, especially one under enemy lines, getting a bath much less one with hot water was an almost unknown luxury. She scrubbed the dirt and grime out of her vigorously with the soap and shampoo that were on the bathroom. She almost turned the shower off after the water became lukewarm before scolding herself once more for becoming so soft and staying until it was ice cold and she was fully awake despite her exhaustion.

Still moving in her underwear she went and tuned the small radio of the room to the local news, she was still in the middle of an information blackout and every scrap of intel was vital. It was a disappointment that instead of an established and reliable news program the only thing she cold get was one of those failed DJs who loved to rile up people and weren't afraid of twisting the truth to do so. Even then it was better than nothing so she let him fill the background as she did a full inventory of her gear.

For starters she had another set of clothes, orange t-shirt and a black skirt plus plain white underwear set and black socks. It was for all intents purposes useless as any form of disguise. The T-shirt was identical to the one she was wearing and the skirt while being a little shorter and of a different cut and fabric was similar enough as to be identical as far as she was concerned. So tomorrow her first priority would be to find different clothes, ate least three or four sets. Her green jacket would be also replaced for a set of reversible jackets as soon as she had the opportunity, it was too distinctive.

Then she took her weapons and let them on the bed to give them a closer look, first it was the tranquilizer rifle in the helicopter. The model seemed to be a compressed air one shot weapon with low range and a precision that was unknown to her until she could test it on a firing range, a luxury that at the moment was beyond reach. In any firefight she would prefer even a civil war revolver over it any day of the week. It just wasn't worth its bulk, so she disassembling it for later disposal in different trash cans over the city.

On the other hand the darts were far more useful, having already demonstrated that they could incapacitate someone in more or less three seconds. And the effects seemed to be more or less long term. 'That particular field test is still in progress', she thought as she once again poked at the Casanova tied in the bed. The only problem was that the case had only come with six darts of whom she had expended already two and half expended a third one, if she was lucky and the amount left was enough to at least incapacitate for a few seconds, leaving three full darts for later use.

Her other ranged weapon was a flare gun with another three white flares remaining. And as far as she was concerned it was barely more practical as a weapon that the rifle. Their creators had designed it with the open sky as its only target and therefore it lacked even iron sights. And the flares themselves were probably unable to even penetrate a woolen jacket. On the other hand with a truckload of luck they might set the same jacket on fire and at least she could conceal the pistol on a pocket with no trouble.

Then there was her last weapon, unless she broke the whisky bottle, the survivalist knife. It was one of the smaller of its kind, with a four inches blade with a straight edge in front and a flat spine. As usual for these tools it had a hollow rubber handle that could be used for storage of small quantities of gear such as matches or string and needle. It was a fine tool, but in the end designed as a tool not a weapon, even if she had been able to use it as such with her current body. The handle was a little too big for her hand to get a comfortable grip, and on the first solid contact it would probably slip form her hands.

Money wise her situation as not good but wasn't urgent either, while the credit cards were probably bulletined by now and therefore she would only be able to use them as a way to attract attention, she had three hundred an fifty seven dollars with sixty eight cents. For the kind of expenses that she would incur just to keep a safe location they would last for a few days, but when adding other costs for disguises, additional gear and transport then she would be hurting for money in a matter of days.

And once more Ken would not help too much, other than a teacher's discount card and less than twenty dollars he was dirt poor, as expected from someone who thought that his book would be both a best seller and a piece of art while writing so bad. She decided against stealing the meager amount to keep him from calling the police if he recognized her in the news that sooner or later would break out.

'The only thing I'm provided well enough is my first aid kit' she thought as she rubbed some more Lidocaine gel over her ribs. 'And chances are that if I need it I'm not going to live long enough for the bandages to matter anyway.'

Then, after she packed everything again, including the rifle which she disassembled in its most basic components she finally heard something of interest in the radio.

"…_And in other news it seems that our esteemed neighbors from Oakwood somehow managed to crash one of their choppers, they call it emergency landing but we know better, don't we? It doesn't even say if they were lazy bums who don't take care of their toys or if the pilot had one beer too many, I guess they don't want us to laugh too hard, how considerate. The two crewmembers and three of the passengers were sent to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries, and if their doctors are as good as their pilots we can expect for them to leave there on wooden boxes. But hear this, there were four, not three, four passengers, it seems that they missed one, a girl by the name of Darla or Melody or as I call her: Screw Up! The losers can't even decide on her name… Well this is Spatula Man replacing that reporter guy who had a heart attack this morning; see you after a word from our sponsors._"

While this reporter wasn't as clear and concise as she would have liked, the message itself was quite positive, the passengers were alive and receiving medical attention, and the fact that it hadn't being covered up meant that whoever did this had no control over the media or most of the local government. She had expected that they would tell know about her name, but it was a little disappointing that they knew of her alias, she had being hoping that they would they would keep it under wraps, or even better being ignorant about it.

The other interesting detail there was what wasn't said, if the county had released the exact cause for the crash landing even that poor excuse of a reporter would have mention it, probably amongst insults and taunts, it was just too sensationalist to ignore. The correct question was why? If it was just to protect a federal investigation on how and why did terrorist infiltrated a government agency, even one as small as an ERU?, were they covering the terrorists from public scrutiny?, were they covering their asses?

She waited for half an hour of wildly inaccurate commentaries from the Spatula man before the so called news program was over, letting her with some answers and a few more questions than she had started with.

Since she had not way to get the answers she prepared herself for the rest of the night by tucking Edwards on the bed in such a way that he would act as a living decoy in case someone broke in, and then getting herself under the same bed with her knife ready just in case, hoping that if her enemies shot the fool they wouldn't use armor piercing bullets. As she felt asleep in the tight space one last thought came on her mind regarding the news bulletin on the radio.

'Maybe in the morning I can hear a slightly less biased story from a real journalist?'

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The real reason why the story hadn't become public until then was a series of misunderstandings emanating from a reasonable mistake.

When the crew of the first helicopter was recovered, the pilot had managed to more or less tell what happened to one of his rescuers before falling unconscious again. When the police sergeant sent there to support the rescue operations had been told of the matter and had a look of the other victims of the glitterberries before they were airlifted for a second time he issued a series of patrols on the nearby roads and forest, reasonably believing that the girl would be as crazy as a goat in heat.

It wasn't until an hour later than when asking for additional backup, Mike the emergency dispatcher realized that they were working under a wrong assumption. While the rest of the victims were indeed evidently crazy and unable to interact with others, the 911 call had shown a level of sophistication when speaking that was way above of regular calls, too sophisticated and lucid to be of someone having hallucinations.

They had all expended hours searching the local woods under the assumption that no motorist would be willing or able to take a crazy and vociferous teen for a ride. To his credit once the sergeant heard the tape he immediately expanded the search radius to the nearest towns in both directions of the road.

This was further hampered by the simple fact that they had no idea what she looked like and that they wouldn't know for a few more hours until Henry and John received the counter agent for the paralyzing-anesthetic formula. Without a description an Amber Alert or an APB would be impossible to set up successfully so they had to wait until then for even the sparse information that was given on the press release that Spatula Man joked about.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"_Girls, I just want you to know your mother and I realize it's not easy moving to a whole new town… especially for you, Daria, right?"_

"_Did we move?"_

"_I'm just saying you don't make friends as easily as... uh, some people."_

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"_It seems she has low self-esteem."_

"_What? That really stinks, Daria!"_

"_Easy, Jake. Focus"_

"_We tell you over and over again that you're wonderful and you just... don't... get it! What's wrong with you?"_

"_Is she going to have, like, a breakdown or something? 'Cause that could really mess me up with my new friends."_

"_Don't worry. I don't have low self-esteem. It's a mistake."_

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"_So, you've got any brothers or sisters?"_

"_I'm an only child."_

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

beep, beep ,beep…

The soft sound of the alarm in her watch startled Melody and she had to suppress a cry of pain when her head hit the bottom of the bed. She stopped moving for a few seconds to try hearing if her sudden movement had waked her lover/prisoner from his chemical nap. Satisfied that the only sound was the one of the soft whining of Ken she crawled out of the bed.

Once she was standing once more she finally noticed that her cheeks were wet. She had been crying? She could barely remember her dream, it felt so far away… but she could recall the feelings of isolation and hurt with crystal clarity. And also she half remembered that family of the chopper, the Morgendorffers, as if they had something to do with…

When she found who exactly had messed with her memory and feelings she wouldn't kill the bastards. No, killing them wouldn't be the right thing to do, she would take an icepick, a rusty one, and then she would perform a little memory alteration of her own. A lobotomy was after all a valid medical procedure a few years ago, and who knows, maybe part of the memories erased are of her time in med school.

The feeling of isolation are just natural for someone in deep cover, and even more for someone hunted like an animal after discovery, and no matter what the others members of the Farm thought, she wasn't made of stone, she could feel. The trick was that she usually used those feelings to her benefit, but now that she had yet to find a target to redirect those feelings her emotional control had a harder time containing them. On the other hand she knew exactly what would the perfect solution for her woes; to find who her enemy was and stalk him until he felt the fear of dying alone in the dark, and then proving his fears as painfully real.

Now that her philosophical concerns were taken care of she needed to see if Ken was still unconscious or just asleep, her current plans would depend of that. Resisting the impulse to just strangle him, she put her hand on his neck and searched once more for his pulse. Just like yesterday it was regular even if a tat slow. Next she opened his eye and checked how his pupils reacted to the light; still abnormally so and therefore she had enough time on her hands to properly prepare her departure.

After dressing herself she took the bindings out of him, now that she was going to leave while he was still out they weren't necessary, and instead took his clothes and poured a few drops of whisky on them, just enough to give them the aroma without being suspicious, before using them to methodically clean any surface where she could have left fingerprints. The rest of the bottle went to the drain of the shower, after she took all the stray hairs she could find

Then with the remains of the wine, more like cheap grape juice as far as she was concerned she stained the bed covers in the center, after all he took her virginity and she was sure he was going to check, if nothing else to brag it to himself.

Once that was done she wrote a letter on one of the pages of her notebook, and then she took his manuscript to avoid him from bothering anyone else with it; with a little bit of luck it was the only copy and she would be able to prevent a horrid waste of paper from polluting the world.

Then, when the clock marked it was six she left the room, before the maid from the morning turn, or the manager, or anyone else realized she had been in the room.

But not before one last kick between his legs, this time with her boots on.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Ken woke up in a sea of pain.

His head was being pounded by giant hammers, and the sounds coming from wherever he was sounded as if he had a bullhorn on his ear. Whenever he tried to open his eyes light would blind him and by some arcane method would increase the pounding tenfold for an eternity or two.

After a time, a long time, he was able to finally opening his eyes with just head splitting pain instead of the previous unending agony. It took a few moments to realize that the glass of water he always left within arm reach of his bed wasn't there, an a little longer to realize that he wasn't in his bed either.

It looked as if he was in the middle of a cheap motel, and he was naked on it. He also smelled like cheap booze.

"How the hell did I end here?" He asked aloud and immediately came to regret it as the pain in his head once again let itself know, and he dry heaved on the bed.

Then after it subsided he tried to walk towards the bathroom. He was just so thirsty! He couldn't give even half a step before he fell, wringing in pain. His groin felt on fire.

But soon he was able to stand up, even if only with great difficulty and then to walk once more towards the bathroom, this time carefully and with tiny little steps. Once he arrived he nearly drown himself drinking the water with desperation.

With his more immediate concerns satisfied for the moment he then tried to recall how he got there. It took a while, his thoughts were disorganized and blurry, but there was a woman… no a girl, Abigail. He found her on the road, abandoned and sad. They ate together, he took it to himself to help her and then… and then…

Then she asked to stop on the motel. To give him her maidenhood and turn her into a woman.

Where was Abigail?

He ignored the pain, or at least he tried, and went back to the room. His clothes were in different parts of the room, likewise the bed was just as much of a mess with the covers strewn everywhere, and there he could see in one of them some stains, red stains.

Now he understood, yesterday he had taught Abigail how to awaken her passion, and she had done so with him, probably all night. Her inner fire and resilience of youth against his experience (which truth to be told wasn't that much) and manly attributes. And for the pain he was feeling on his manhood the passion grew wild at some point. Maybe a little too wild…

Then he saw the folded piece of paper on the night table. When he opened it he could see the words written in beautiful longhand.

Ken:

Thank you for helping me yesterday, your kind words and your gentle touch allowed me to realize my inner beauty. And the night is one I'll never forget, it was simply divine.

Now I need to leave, I know of the problems that would occur if they saw us together, of how you wouldn't be allowed to help others as you did with me.

With Love:

Abby

He was so proud, at last he had managed to bring to live his more inner dreams, and done so while helping a lady in need. He would immortalize her in his books, describing the magical moment in all its glory for the world to see, and learn.

Now, if he could only remember what happened during the night itself?

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

A little psychological torture is always fun, especially if the victim doesn't even realize it.


	6. Information Gathering

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 05: Information Gathering

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

After leaving the motel the first priority of Melody was to get some new clothes, something a little harder due to the early hour. So early on a Sunday morning the only shop that would be open was Payday, and that particular warehouse had an abundance of cameras. But there was a small window of opportunity for going there, even if she was operating on a tight schedule, the morning news were still sparse about the specifics on the events of yesterday but the latest news already included a very rough description of her, and the longer she stayed the way she was the longer her odds were getting.

So she asked for directions to the first person she saw on the street and then took the appropriate bus. On the way to the bus stop she threw pieces of the disassembled tranq gun, it was too much of a liability to keep. Once she arrived she went to the back of the store and threw the last pieces of the rifle and her remaining clothes, minus the green jacket to the garbage container in the back.

Then with a much lighter load she entered the store and bought some sturdy jeans, a skort, and a skirt that reached to the knee; a couple of t-shirts, blouses, sweaters, caps and sports bras, one in a bright color an another in a darker shade of each; also a pair of tennis shoes and another of comfortable penny loafers; and finally one blue backpack and a pink suitcase to replace the duffel bag, which had become uncomfortably noticeable. Additionally she got a small flashlight and both matches and a lighter, darkness was an ally of convenience after all.

Curious about such purchases and having enough time in his hands with the shop being virtually empty in account of the hour the cashier couldn't help but to ask.

"Got a lot of clothes there, wardrobe malfunction?"

Brushing aside his attempt of humor Melody just put an annoyed face, which came way too naturally for her, and answered. "Came here with my dad to a business trip, and just my luck, guess which suitcase the airline lost? Being on these clothes since yesterday." Then she paid and left.

Once she was out of sight from the cashier she did a straight line to the bathroom and changed her skirt for jeans and put her dark sweater over the orange t-shirt. She took off her boots and instead decided to start breaking in the tennis shoes. Complementing her outlook she tied her hair into a simple ponytail and put a cap over it.

Now that her immediate safety concerns were resolved then she could went to take a bite in the nearest dinner, with a little bit of luck they would have the news tuned. Maybe later she would try her luck finding a cybercafé open on Sunday.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

On the county of Oakwood the manhunt to capture Daria Morgendorffer was stumbling into one problem after another.

When captain Abrams had woken up in the hospital after being hit with a tranquilizer dart with enough juice to put a doped up football player or a mild mannered gorilla to sleep for a few hours hooked to the kinds of devices that until now he had only seen in some of his more battered passengers through the years he had at the beginning being unable to remember just what had happened or how did he got there, but then, when under the gentle coaching of a police detective he was able to remember bit by bit.

"And after you were airborne what happened?"

"We flew back towards the heliport. The patients were being loud, but as far as hallucinating junkies go they were pretty peaceful, even when counting that the guy took the six of us to bring down. They were talking about unicorns and ponies for god's sake!"

"And what about the other one, Daria Morgendorffer?"

"Well, she was more than a little irritated when we arrived, but she gave me the impression that she was on top of the situation from the start."

"Can you describe her please?"

"Yes, she is a young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, brunette, with big black cumbersome glasses, and eyes… eyes… I can't remember her eyes, sorry."

"No problem, how was she dressed?"

"Green jacket, skirt and boots, black boots."

The officer took his radio and repeated the description, then continued. "Did your EMT checked her?"

"Yeah, after she complained from her ribs Miles examined her, they were bruised from a bad fall, and he rubbed some gel on her for the pain, the plan was to get her some x-rays later. Other than that she was quite sane, if that's what you're implying."

"I'm sorry but I need to ask."

"Yeah I know, and she was really tired, she fell asleep as soon as we leave was a small miracle. I should have realized that something was wrong when she slept in the middle of a flying nuthouse."

"So then you flew for over an hour with no incident whatsoever and then she woke up, did she gave any sign of unnatural behavior?"

"No, the first clue that something was wrong was when I saw her stabbing Miles with a dart."

"How did she got access to those darts, for that matter, why was she in the back. Isn't it standard procedure for the EMT to fly with his patients?"

"Yes, it is procedure, but we were flying full, and he wouldn't have enough room to work, so we left there Daria, she demonstrated early that she was able to control them without resorting to physical contact, and also that a familiar face would keep them calm. As for the darts, I guess that the ranger left their toy gun there and forgot to tell us about it."

Once more after telling to the people in the other side about searching for a rifle in the helicopter the cop prodded the pilot to keep talking. "After she took down Miles, what did she do?"

"She put another dart in my neck and threaten to kill me, and she did with the kind of voices I used to hear from the hardcore guys of the army, the ones that preferred knifes. Then when I tried to talk her down she started saying nonsense about Hanoi and Air America. 'Nam stuff, well before my time and I'm damn sure way before hers."

"Did she sound angry when she told you that?"

"No. Well she was angry, but not in the way you mean, she didn't scream or raged, she was cold as a gravestone, and she was meaning every word. But she was crazy non the less, saying stuff about Migs and how they would blow us if I called home. At that point I was about to land as she demanded…"

"Why did you surrendered to her demands?"

"She could kill us all at any time with a little prick, at least in the ground I could turn to the back seat without falling. And damn glad I did, when she did prick me I…"

"What happened then?"

"I don't know, I remember diving to the ground and then nothing. I have no idea how did we land…"

The interview continued from a while, but after that they upgraded the alert from a missing person probably in shock, to a violent and probably hallucinating girl of indeterminate age and build, to a paranoid brunette armed with a tranq gun with an unknown amount of darts and dressed in a skirt and green jacket.

It was too late anyway, by that time, Daria has already skip town, and for that matter the county frontier. To make a bad situation much worse, the sheriff of Oakwood had rude and blatantly mocked his counterpart in the county of Lawndale about the embarrassing defeat of the Lions. The sheriff of Oakwood was professional enough to apologize before asking to expand the APB for Daria Morgendorffer to the county of Lawndale. Regrettably, the commissioner of Lawndale was the proud father of a senior in the team and he wasn't as amused nor as willing to left bygones be bygones, so he denied the petition claiming that her last known location was well apart from the county line and therefore not his problem.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The doctors at the local hospital had their own set of problems, the main one being that returning the Morgendorffer family to sanity proved to be harder than expected.

When they arrived the day before, with multiple lacerations both from the attempts to restrain them and their struggles to escape from their own restrains both before and after the crash, dehydrated, and most important of all, with a severe intoxication from an unknown hallucinogen they had given them a large quantity of liquids after they performed an stomach plump, and they filled them with laxatives and diuretics.

Other than keeping the orderlies busy during the night changing their diapers, no way were they going to release them from their bindings after the fiasco in the helicopter, the measure didn't have any noticeable effect on their symptoms. The blood test performed for the most common hallucinogens came out negative, and broader blood tests would take days, even weeks to get any useful answer unless they had an idea of what to look for.

Their break finally came when early in the morning the resident botanist for the Oakwood National Park called with the correct species of plant, as well as the name of the specific toxins that were produced by the bush and its berries. The resident hematologist just had to take a look to his medical encyclopedia and then at their chart and booked the Hemodialysis machine for the three of them.

Due to the low amount of berries she ate in proportion to her body weight Helen was the first one to recuperate her sanity, more or less in the afternoon of Sunday.

"Ugh… My head hurts." She could hear after that a buzz and then she felt how someone forcing her eye open. Then a bright light followed.

"Okay, the pupil is no longer dilated. Miss, can you tell me your name?"

"Helen Morgendorffer, where am I?"

"You're on the Oakwood General Hospital, you suffered a serious case of food poisoning, and I need to ask you a few questions."

It was then when she realized that she was hooked to a I.V. drip, and more important, that she couldn't move her hands and the reason why. "Why am I cuffed? I demand to be released immediately!"

"Miss Morgendorffer, you are restrained for your own protection as well as ours. Once you respond a few simple questions I will release you, so please be patient. Now do you understand?"

"Yes, but I still want to know who in the world did a food poisoning led to me being strapped to the bed, and if the answer is not good enough I will sue this hospital in general and you in particular until you don't have a penny in your name anymore!"

"Okay, question number one. The first president of the U.S. was? …"

After a Q&A session an a physical that lasted for an eternity the doctor was satisfied by her level of sanity and even if he didn't release her yet he started responding her questions, "Helen, yesterday you ate some berries in the woods of Oakwood's park, those berries are a potent and persistent hallucinogen, it resisted the more common methods to detox so this morning we put you on dialysis to filtrate the toxins out of your body. That is the reason we have to keep you restrained until we are sure that you are in your full mental faculties."

"Poisoned berries? Dammit Jake you don't have to impress me with your foraging skills… Wait, what happened with Jake, and Daria and Quinn? Are they all right?"

"Quinn was also treated for the poisoning, but the dialysis and the diuretics we gave her during the night took a toll on her body and she is exhausted and a little dehydrated; right now we are letting her sleep it off. In the case of Jake he suffered a mild arrhythmia while hooked to the machine, so we stopped his treatment for the moment. Don't worry, if anything that's a blessing in disguise, the arrhythmia is a preexistent condition, and the best place for it to manifest is in the middle of a hospital. He'll need some medicament for it, and we're already injecting him with the same counter agent as yours to deal with the hallucinogen, it is going to be a slower process but in two or three days he'll be out of it."

"Oh thank god, but what about Daria?" Before the doctor could answer her question she did it herself. "Of course, she didn't eat the berries for breakfast; sometimes I wish I had that girl's common sense. Where is she? Is she with Jake? I need for her to get my cell, if I know Erik half as well as I do, he must be panicking by now."

"Miss Morgendorffer, I am sorry but your daughter Daria showed some delayed symptoms mid transport and she is missing since yesterday. The authorities are doing every…"

Helen couldn't believe her ears, "How can you be so incompetent as to miss my daughter! If something happens to her I swear I'm not going to stop until I can sent every person responsible of this screw up to jail for a hundred years each!"

She stopped her tirade when she saw someone appearing from a blind spot. She then realized that the person in question had badge clipped to his belt.

"Good afternoon Miss Morgendorffer, I'm Detective Eddie Brock, the officer in charge for the search for your daughter. I'm sorry to be blunt but right now we should be focusing in finding your daughter before she hurts anyone, including herself, and not in useless recriminations."

"Look, Daria's tongue might be a little too sharp in occasions, but she is unable to hurt a fly other than with words. Now can you tell me how did you loss her!"

"Your daughter attacked the orderly and the pilot of your Medevac in the middle of the air knocking them unconscious. It is a true miracle that the pilot managed to crash land the vessel at all. As soon as we realized something was wrong we started the search for the helicopter, but we didn't have any notice about the crash or any of you, daughter included, until a 911 call told us of the position of the crash. By the time we arrived she had tied the crew, one of them in an extremely painful manner."

"oh my god." Her voice almost lost itself on the sounds of the hospital.

"We do know that it was your daughter who called 911, we managed to match the voice of the person who reported the crash and her first call to report your intoxication. Does the name Melody Powers rings a bell?"

Caught by surprise by the out of the way question Helen was brought out of her stupor and answered sincerely. "No, I can't say I do, why do you ask?"

"Because that is the alias she gave to the dispatcher and we were hoping that it would give us at least a clue of her destination. Well, maybe she's going home. Can you tell us your address so we can send a unit to keep an eye?"

"Yes is 1111 Glen Oaks Lane, five minutes from the Lawndale Mall."

"God dammed! I was hoping that you were from Oakwood, right now the Lawndale Police Department has been stonewalling all of our attempts to expand the search of your daughter in their county."

"I see officer. I think I can help; could you please bring me a phone? Fair warning, the conversation is going to be a little long and from time to time I'll have to go in a tangent."

After that the staff managed to get a phone, and the doctor finally released one of her hands so that she could use the phone freely.

"Erik, no right now I don't know anything about the depositions. Listen to me, I have an emergency, a real one, and I need your help" …

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"It's a good thing to be left alone."

The members of the Lane family who were still living in Lawndale were basking in the sun outside Casa Lane with their sunglasses on and a glass of lemon soda on their hands, talking and relaxing after the hard job of waking up well after noon.

"Yeah, I got a new understanding of why the Wandering Lanes started to wander. It's for the rest of the family to never find them ever again. I think we should do that for next year's reunion."

"Nah, too much work, next year lest just leave the phone unhooked for the entire month."

"I like the way you think."

Then they went back to the poptarts they were eating from breakfast.

"So, what are you doing tonight?"

"I think that Jesse mentioned a gig at the Zon, see if it's still there."

"Loud, uncaring and distant patrons who doesn't give a damn about you either way. Good way of erasing this weekend from your mind, or at least your eardrums."

"I can still hear Uncle Max, I hope that goes away. Anyway, is Daria back yet?"

"No, if anything goes as planned she still has about eight hours more of torture before she either comes back or she gets on a killing rage. Still even with the additional torture time I'm confident that I'll win our little bet, there's no way that poor woodcraft and unlimited bathroom space can beat emotional trauma and insane and rude family members who number themselves in the dozens."

"Cool."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody was drinking her coffee with a grimace, it had been fortunate enough to find a cybercafé which was open on Sundays, even if the coffee was one of the worst she had ever tasted. Why would they have the base of a professional Espresso Machine and put there a Mister Coffee that percolated as bad as a dirty sock?

Earlier in the morning she had a relaxing breakfast in which the only rumors she was able to hear about the crash were speculations about how the incompetents morons of Oakwood had managed to crash one of their own choppers on the middle of a bright clear day. Some of the theories brought a smile to her face, they were crazy, some even crazier than reality, and that was never an easy feat when reality was how terrorist were captured by a veteran agent undercover as a little teen a little less than half her age.

Afterwards she headed to a newsstand where she bought an assortment of newspapers as well as a couple of maps, one of them a simplified one for tourists with the more prominent landmarks as well as the directions from the sponsors' shops, and the other a full size vial map of city. The information given by the newspapers was confusing; the wide circulation national newspapers were still blissfully unaware of the events that had transpired during the previous day, which was disappointing but not unexpected at this point of time.

Curiously enough, the Lawndale Sun preferred to give in the first page a blow by blow account of the game between Oakwood's Pumas and Lawndale Lions; it had a photo of an helicopter buzzing the field and the subsequent headline of 'Cheaters!' posted, and was claiming that a chopper had distracted the lions when they were about to win the game. She realized that the article she was looking was in page eight and it had more thinly veiled insults to the rival town that real information. It even claimed that the same careless pilot who cheated on them was the one that fell from the sky as a form of divine punishment, a claim easily dismissed by reading the different registration numbers on the craft.

The one paper who had something closer to the truth was one called Sick, Sad World and in the beginning she thought it was a tabloid and only added it to her purchase due to the fact that it had a clear photo of the fallen helicopter on the first page. Inside there was a more or less complete account of the finding of the crash by another helicopter as well as a status update of the passengers, who were much to her relief in Oakwood's general hospital receiving treatment. The article also had a transcript of her 911 call as well as both her name and the alias she had for this mission and her most complete description to date, which thankfully was still outdated by now. The only point where it wasn't spot on was the fact that now she was considered crazy due to the ingestion of something called glitterberries, and that mistake could easily be attributed to the statements of the authorities. The rest of the articles were a little bit more unbelievable or grotesque, but she decided to keep an open mind, after all her own article was better written that the ones from the established and respected newspaper.

Then she had gone to one of the gyms promoted on the tourist map and filled in for a membership and paying two months in advance claiming to the manager that she wanted to get in shape to get a tennis player that had caught her eye, and that the only way she would commit to it was to pay it so that if she didn't come then the money for her allowance would be wasted. While she wanted to eventually get back to the shape she used to be, the real reason was to get access to a secure locker in a place where no one would think to search to let her suitcase with most of her clothes and gear.

She was currently investigating her own name, which was rare enough as to be able to confidently read past articles going back entire years and be fairly sure they were about her. Her notebook was already filled with random data from a more or less superficial research of both Jake and Helen Morgendorffer.

Jake was as common an American could be without falling too far in the stereotype, he had his own (humble) website for his job as a publicity consultant with an office in Halcyon Hills Corporate Park, in which he included some notes about the horrors of Buxton Ridge; I would have been more worried about him being a military hating extremist if not for the fact that once I worked with an alumnus, and the school was so bad that he preferred to sign three tours to Vietnam rather than ending his studies there, even after he lost the legs.

Helen on the other hand seemed to be a higher level corporative lawyer and part of the firm of Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter, with a specialty in work hazards. She had as part of her web page several of her successful cases, many of them which we could check on the news for independent confirmation of their resolution, usually with the phrase '…and they settled out of court for an undisclosed amount'. The most interesting part was that their office was only a couple of blocks away of the cybercafé.

When that was done she started investigating her own name to get a better outlook of her second life. Since the name itself wasn't too common she was able to easily sort the different results, and her life was certainly disconcerting.

Some of the first things she found where a series of articles about fashion from a school in Highland, Texas. The signature of them placed her as the Fashion Editor of the weekly publication. At the beginning she thought that maybe she had elected to put on herself pretty clothes for comfort, but she could see that all articles were highly critical of the vapid and inconsistent modes and the corresponding quest for popularity while accurately depicting the current trends in the world of fashion. The only other article she found was a signed apology for disrupting a presidential visit to the school, reading between the lines she could see that she had asked a few questions too hard for the man to properly answer, and that the school had forced the writer to do the open letter as a punishment.

For some reason she couldn't stop herself from thinking about a couple of moronic rednecks with huge deformed heads laughing and doing rude comments in front of the president; then she chastised herself, 'it is not the time to get whimsical, I got a job to do'

She then reviewed the addresses which had been posted within the year, finding fewer references, but just as important. The first one chronologically speaking was a note in the Lawndale Lowdown, the school's newspaper, where she and a Jane Lane had successfully completed the Self-Esteem curse at Lawndale High.

"Self-Esteem curse; must be a typo. And why did I end in that particular course?" She stopped muttering when a memory hit her by surprise.

"_I just want to say how proud I am today. Knowing that I have self-esteem gives me even more self-esteem." _

"_On the other hand, having all of you know that I had low self-esteem makes me feel... kind of bad... like a big failure or something."_

"_I, uh, I want to go home."_

She was smiling; she could felt it on her lips. The memory was a fond one even if the only thing she could recall was some sort of childish antic. Going back to her work she checked the other article mentioning her name. It was a simple list of the participants in a place called Café Lawndale for its first and last night of performances. It had a link to a Lawndale Sun article:

Café Lawndale closed until further notice.

School authorities have decided to close Lawndale's new young adult coffeehouse after its opening night somehow turned into an anti-communist rally. 'Some unscheduled propagandizing went on and the students reacted a little too favorably,' explained coffeehouse director Timothy O'Neill, a teacher at Lawndale High. Following a reading of some right-wing literature, several members of the football marched down North Avenue, intending to stone the Russian Embassy. Of course, there are no embassies in Lawndale. 'Teens are impressionable,' O'Neill said, 'and the last thing we want is to build a base of operations for political extremists.'

"At least the American young still got the right attitude, even if the school does not understand that."

Then she saw one little detail in the related articles of the school, one that made her hold back a series of expletives, claiming that the Café Lawndale would revert to its previous function as a cybercafé ' .com' which coincidentally was the name of her current location; and since she was investigating LHS as much as any other clue she would need to treat this place and her search as compromised, especially the last part.

So she went to the caretaker and paid her exact debt, resisting at last minute from adding a generous tip, a habit that was abnormal on teens and would draw more attention to herself. Once she was out of sight she took of her sweater and untied her hair so that she looked different enough to a casual observer and went towards Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter, the closest office in her list.

The place was a seemingly normal building, but she could see from her vantage point in the street that at least someone was working in the third floor; also the position of the vigilance cameras and spotlights made it unpalatable to just get close and try to break in, either in daylight or at night. Resigning herself to letting this place for another day she took a cab after walking a few blocks so that she would not be easily tracked by someone looking in the cab company logs for pick ups in the nearby area. Her destination was Halcyon Hills Corporate Park, Building G (the L-shaped one), to pay a visit to Jake's office.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **


	7. Interlude 01: Quinn's Dream

Operation Glitterberries

Interlude 01: Quinn's Dream

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"irs…thy"

It must have been one hell of a party; but for the life of me I can't remember where or when. The only reason I knew was because I was experimenting the worse of the aftereffects by myself; the sore muscles of dancing the night round, something I never allow anyone until the fifth date, and I never let them reached the third anyway, less problems that way; and the thirst and splitting headache of a massive hangover, which was even more impossible, I Always check that my dates don't do anything funny when bringing food or drinks; I'm not going to get preggers and have a big belly ever. No how, no way!

Trying to open my eyes let through my eyelids a torrent of light and the resulting pain convinced me to stay there with my eyes closed a while longer. It just wouldn't do to get rings worthy of a raccoon anyway.

"Quinn, did you say something?" It was mom, unlike most of the time, she doesn't sound as if she's running late. 'She only sounds like that when I'm really, really sick.' She thought.

"…ater"

Her answer was tender, one more reason to think I got the flu or something; usually she is almost as blunt as Daria, "Just a second honey…" Her next commands were louder, more than loud enough for the headache to flare, "nurse, she's awake, call the doctor and bring some water now!"

A few seconds later I can fell a straw touch my lips and I drink the water, the glorious fresh and delightfully wet water, avidly. I moved my hands to hold the glass or at least I tried; probably I had been tucked to the bed too tight.

Then I realized that mom ordered a nurse to call a doctor; this was definitely not home.

"'ere are we?" My voice wasn't as raspy as before, but my throat was still too dry to speak normally; luckily mom understood anyway.

"We're in the Oakwood General Hospital dear; we had an accident yesterday, you have a few bumps and scratches and they had to plumb our stomachs; also you're a little dehydrated."

"wat appen?"

It was then that another voice, this time male sounded, "Good afternoon Quinn, I'm doctor Hauser, I need to check a few things, so if you could open your eyes? I'll only take a few seconds." At the same time he spoke I could feel the bed righting itself until I was almost seated, but I was still tucked too hard to move; and shouldn't the bedding undo itself when doing that?

Before I could decide to either obey the doctor and risk more pain, or just stay there feinting sleep until he leaved, a hand force my left eyelid fully open and shove a light way too strong through it, and then did the same on the other one. Just as expected I could feel the dancers with those funny tap shoes get wild on top of my head.

After manhandling me in such a way the doctor ignored me completely and talked to my mom. "Okay her pupils are still a little dilated but within normal parameters, I think we can proceed with the rest of the questionnaire. Then finally remembering me he addressed me once more. "Can you tell me your name?"

"..uin... Quinn Morgendorffer. Is this a joke? I need a mirror; I bet I got some horrible rings on my eyes." At least my mouth was moist enough to talk normally again.

Then I heard the doctor whisper something to my mom but even if they didn't want for me to hear, they weren't nearly as quiet as they thought. "I'm sorry Mrs. Morgendorffer, I think that she's still under the influence." 'Under the influence of what?' I thought, I'm not one of those losers who take weird stuff at parties; and didn't mom toll me it was an accident?

My mom's answer sounded annoyed, and was kind of annoying, "She is like that all the time doctor. Believe me, I know."

"Okay Quinn, I'll release you after a short test. Okay?" It was then when I noticed that the sheet on the bed were actually very loose and the thing that was stopping me from moving were some kind of leather straps on my arms and legs.

"Is this one of Daria's weird jokes? Because it's not funny and I really don't want to take that weird test a second time." The mortified and suddenly very worried face of mom told me that this was no joke.

"No Quinn, its no joke, just answer doctor Hauser's questions as best as you can." I decided to shut up after that, she sounded scared and mom never sounded scared of anything.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions, please answer them honestly and as fully as possible…" He asked a lot of silly and useless questions, alongside a few more embarrassing ones that she thought of just evading, until a look of her mother told her otherwise. I knew of personal experience that lying to mom once her bullshit detector was on its impossible.

After a while the doctor was satisfied with his silly questions and I was released; and with a little bit of help I was able to sit down, even if I still felt more than a little sore everywhere, even with the Advil they gave me mid interrogation.

"She's still under the influence, not too much, certainly not enough to justify another session of hemodialysis, but she will be feeling a little whimsical for a while."

I still didn't know what was going on, but now that I was free I had some pressing business to attend. "I need to go to the bathroom."

The nurse who helped me to the bathroom wasn't too amused that instead of using the service I went there to check my image in the mirror. I don't know why, she should understand that us girls should always have our priorities straight.

"Mom, my hair is terrible, where is the suitcase with my beauty things?"

"Your hair is fine Quinn. Sit down, we need to talk." Now that the doctor finally decided that I'm not dying, her tender side was once again eclipsed by her businesswoman persona.

"Okay, okay, let's make this quick, if I got dehydrated then I'll need a humectant lotion. Do you know what kind of harm does lack of hydration do to the skin, do you?"

"Quinn listen to me this is important. Do you remember what happened yesterday?"

"Umm… yes? We went camping with dad, and after he messed with the tents and we had to raise them ourselves, we sat in front of the campfire telling ourselves horror stories, and by the way mom, you shouldn't allow Daria to tell that kind of stories anymore, hers are really disgusting. And then we went to sleep, I forgot just how annoying is to sleep with Daria anymore, I guess that was for us to remember the good things we have at home, like separate rooms with sturdy locks. Let me tell you that…"

"Okay Quinn, stop. Do you remember the next day what did we have for breakfast?" Now that's a weird question, and not would what I call important, maybe if I had a breakfast at Tiffany's, just like on that old movie…

"Yes, those berries my dad brought, I'll admit I was a little tiny bit skeptical about them, but they were really yummy."

"Quinn, they were hallucinogen berries. What else do you remember?"

"Well, after breakfast we separated and went for a walk in the woods, good thing that Daria always choses rock, if not I might have gone with Dad... Not that going to long walks with dad is bad or anything, but for some reason he always get that glassy look in his eyes whenever I'm talking about mode, and then sometimes he starts rambling about…"

"Quinn, I get the point, could you please continue?"

"Okay, okay. We were walking through the forest, and then You started rambling about buds and doors and maybe I should have stayed with Dad, at least his ramblings are somewhat predictable…" At this point I had to struggle a little with my memory to remember what happened next. "…then your pupils kind of grow as big as dishes and you started talking about leading the tribe or something and then you fainted, so I screamed Daria to come and then… then you woke up but you were talking all, I don't know, weird, weirder, weirdest? … and then Daria and I started thinking about how did this happen, but then, then I realized that the fault wasn't of the glitterberries, but that we just needed to? … fly away?" I stopped when I realized just how weird I sounded, fly away? Glitterberries? Even now on my mind it does sound like a really crazy dream.

"Do you remember something else?" A nice male voice asked from behind the curtain of the bed next to mine.

"Yes I remember running and then… Who are you?"

"Hi, I'm Eddie, and I'm investigating your food poisoning, don't worry about me, just continue with your story, it is quite interesting and I would be glad to hear the end." I saw my mother throwing him a dirty look, but he filled his suit so well that I couldn't care less about mom, and I bet I can earn a few more points with him if I told him some of my wacky dreams.

"Well yes, I remember that we were all running free dancing and prancing in the forest when suddenly a Hag called my name, my one true name, and then, when I got close to her she locked me on an iron cage kicking and screaming. I was just so mad, that I couldn't help but to sound the war horn inside, calling my cute animals from the forest to come to my rescue, they must have fought quite fiercely since the Hag came back and tied me, but it was too late, a couple of jolly green giants came and rescue me and the rest of the members of the tribe of the grey fox, letting me a place of honor inside their huge bumblebee alongside daddy and you."

"The hag was right, to fly inside the stomach of the bumblebee is better than my own wings, you can see the ground bellow without getting tired from flapping your wings like this…" I did a pretty faithful imitation of how I was flying before getting to the bumblebee but then Hauser interrupted me.

"I think that she's still a little too affected by the toxin. Maybe we could let this conversation for another time officer." I could tell it wasn't a question even if Eddie chose to take it as one. "No doctor, I believe that right now is the best time to continue, until now what she had told us match what the recue team wrote in their report." Then he went and faced mom and pleaded directly to her. "We need the information to help your other daughter Mrs. Morgendorffer."

I didn't care about their discussion too much, I was wrapped in the story already and I couldn't stop even if I wanted. "As I was saying, we were flying free, but then I remember the Hag, who until now was under a spell that made her sleep, wake up and take from the floor some of the small red and white hornets from the ground and use their poison to attack the beast riders who were at the reins of the bumblebee, all while saying stuff with a voice so cold and angry, and then…" Then I'm not in the hospital anymore, I'm there once more falling from the skies to my death.

"I remember how we were all falling down, how we were rushing towards the earth before hitting the ground with a bang… I remember that the vines that held me to the bumblebee cutting me for those seconds, and then… then I remember the hag crawling and skulking from one way to another, but then she got to the riders and took from her belt a wicked knife…" I saw Eddie and mom both tense up when I mentioned the last part, but by now I don't care anymore; I'm already lost too far into the memories.

"The hag was raising her blade, ready to cut apart the rider, when daddy screamed 'NO, KIDDO, NO!'" I was screaming the last part and both mom and the doctor jumped to the sound, I also saw Eddie holding his pen so hard that it was cracking. "Then we all started telling her no, and she just lowered her knife and told us 'I won't kill him' and she sounded so relieved and so tired that I thought she was going to kiss us with her ugly hag's lips and then set us free from the vines. But then she said something else and took some other vines which she used to bound the riders, and then she walked away. Just walked away..."

Eddie was already scowling, as if he hadn't liked my story, but what really worrying was that Mom was by now openly crying. I don't think that I have ever seen her like that, but then I realized that tears were slipping from my eyes too. Then I realize that this was all a crazy acid dream. Nothing was real. I'm so happy that for a moment I revert to my Texas accent, the one I worked hard to make disappear.

"Ohh Ghaud, wait 'til I tell Sandi and the rest of the Fashion Club how acid feels like, I won't even get in problems over it. It was such nice dream, shame that in the end it become a bad trip. But I can edit that later, not like they would realize." Once more mom's expression stops me, I have seen her angry, happy, worried, and in a couple of times deliriously happy, but never I saw such anguish on her face, or anyone else for that matter, before.

"Quinn, dear. I'm so sorry, but it wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream at all."


	8. Home Invasion I

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 06: Home Invasion I

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Entering Jake's Morgendorffer office was almost insulting on its simplicity, in the early afternoon of a Sunday the entire Halcyon Hills Corporate Park complex was completely empty, with not a soul to be seen in the little distance she had to walk from where the cab left her. The building itself was in great disrepair, with the paint falling in flakes from the walls and a couple of windows were cracked and hold together with the help of masking tape.

Her first hurdle was how to enter the building, the front door was obviously closed and so was the back door; the windows in the first floor all had bars. Her entry point came in the form of a small window in the side of the building, too small for an adult to cross, in fact it was almost too small for her and for the first time she was truly glad she was so slim. After a somehow undignified landing she was able to exit the broom closet and get into the building proper.

Once there it was a matter of finding the correct office a fact simplified by the plaque with the legend 'Morgendorffer Consulting' in dirty gold letters. She was about to kick the cheap door down, even someone as small and weak as she was could do a lot of harm with enough time and a hammer from the broom closet, but remembering one of her instructors in lock picking, she tried the handle first just in case.

"Jackpot!"

The office of Jake Morgendorffer was a depressing place, it was in the same state of disrepair than the rest of the building; in addition to that it lacked enough furniture for even such a small place, with only a desk and an archive. The place was full of reference books, boxes of discarded publicity, and many knick knacks. The desk itself was full to the brim with piles of badly organized papers which were in danger of falling.

She immediately went to work, checking the papers in the boxes and on the archive, only finding the most common and predictable information of clients and suppliers. In the desk itself the only items of note were a key holder of some sort of malformed riding boot with a set of keys; and an old photo of a couple of rugrats and their parents who she could recognize as the Morgendorffers; making the children Quinn Morgendorffer, the poor teen in the chopper, and whoever she was replacing herself. It seemed that Jake was a good father.

"_Let's go get our picture taken with the cardboard alien."_

" _Uh... sure, honey. Whatever you want."_

These flashbacks were getting weirder each time, she had seen real aliens, and other than the acidic split they weren't something she wanted to go near, not even in a photo.

Then she focused once more on her job and checked the keys, they had a tag with an address on them '1111 Glen Oaks'. On a hunch she took the cheap plastic key holder that she found alongside her notebook and compared both sets of keys, and they were a match with the ones on the desk.

Then the only remaining thing to do was cleaning the office of as much evidence as she could, a determined CSI team would always find enough clues to track someone inside a building as long as someone knew they need to call them; once she let the place as close as possible to its original state she went out by the main door, which opened normally form the inside and leaved towards her next destination. 1111 Glen Oaks Lane.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Marianne Richmond was enjoying her free weekend, while she had gone to the office on Friday, unlike her demanding boss Helen, she had a comparatively relaxed day just filling files in the office and redirecting the occasional call from Eric Schrecter to Helen's cell. The rest of the weekend was gloriously hers and she had squished as much fun for her family as she could. Yesterday she and her husband took the children to the amusement park, and later to the nanny who care for them in her house for the night while they both took a short trip to a cozy hotel nearby.

Now she was returning home from the church and she and her family were going to eat a big fatty dinner composed of her specialty, roasted steak with mushrooms, and then maybe they would send the children to sleep over with Mallory's, they ought them one for doing exactly the same for them last month.

It was then that the dreaded phone started ringing.

"Marianne? Is me Helen, I need for you to go to my home to pick a few things." She sounded weary, although Marianne could almost swear it was not her usual tiredness, it felt different somehow, but could not put her finger on."

"Miss Morgendorffer; today is my free day, I'm sorry but if you need something I'll have to wait until tomorrow, I already got plans of my own." This time she couldn't afford to do whatever her workaholic boss wanted, if she allowed her to order her on her own house on a Sunday, she might never enjoy another day of leisure with her family.

"Please, this is really important..." She was getting desperate, Marianne could tell. But that only angered her. If she was unable to enjoy her family why did she had to punish those who did?

"No, right now I'm enjoying my time with my family and you should do the same! These are your vacation days… just expend them with your children." She was about to hang out, damn the consequences, but the next words of her boss stopped her cold.

"My daughter is missing. Please…" This time the anguish in her voice was unequivocal, this was not an Alpha woman obsessed with work and power, but a mother suffering.

"Helen wait, what happened?"

"We had an accident in the woods; all of us ate some hallucinogen berries, all except Daria. She managed to keep us together until they came for us; they tell me that she probably saved our lives. But when they were bringing us back the berries somehow had a delayed effect on her; she attacked the rescue personnel and disappeared. Jake, Quinn and I are locked in Oakwood General's psychiatric ward and they can't release us until they're sure we have flushed the berries' toxins out of our system."

That was every mother's nightmare, to have your own son, or daughter in this case, and to be unable to do anything about it. "Oh my god! What can I do to help?"

"Oakwood's police have been searching for Daria, but until now they haven't been able to do more than show a sketch of her but is not quite as good as it should be; it seems that her ability to pass unperceived has come to bit us in the ass…" She could hear the melancholy on Helen's voice, "if you could go to my home for a picture of her and a few papers, I would be eternally grateful."

"It's no problem; I'll go at once, let me go for my keys."

"There is something else, Lawndale's Police chief has been unwilling to expand the search to the county, Erik already used his contacts with the mayor to at least get him to fill a missing persons report, but he is demanding that I get Daria's birth certificate before he does anything, procedure he tells, but at least he was forced to send someone with you to open the house and take the documents as soon as you find them."

"Umm Helen, why would I need a police escort?"

"Amongst the thing we lost are our keys, so you'll have to break the door or a window to get in. The cop will do that for you and that ensure that one of our noisy neighbors won't cause any problem for you."

"Something else?"

"if you could bring me some clothes I would be grateful, the authorities were kind enough to drive our SUV to the hospital so we have about two days of clothes, but while Quinn is supposed to wake up any moment from her treatment, they detected a mild case of Arrhythmia on Jake, and they can't just hook him in a machine and cleanse his blood so he's staying here until the meds they are giving him do their job."

The rest of the conversation was the instructions to find the papers required for the missing person report and the medical insurance, the time of arrival of her escort and other details, she didn't miss the way that Helen didn't gave any orders nor gave a single reference of work other than to tell her she was not going on Monday.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

This time Melody asked the cab to drop her more than six blocks away from Glen Oaks Lane, it just wouldn't do to fall into a trap by her enemies, so she treated her approach the same way she did an incursion deep within Indian Territory. She approached not in a straight line, but she went walking in a spiral, searching for parked vans with their plates muddled up, the usual way of staging a fast reaction force to support an ambush.

As she was approaching her destination she walked in a more relaxed and confident way, most people tend to , even if she grew warier with each step, she was going to a place that half competent agency would keep an eye on after neutralizing even a normal family, much less one that was her cover. Even if for some reason the place was lock down tighter than Fort Knox by now, there were neighbors who would surely know her, and that she in turn would be unable to identify with the black hole in her memories, any one of those might end raising the alarm even without trying, and then she would have her enemies homing on the gossip. And she didn't felt like killing innocent bystanders, even if she wouldn't hesitate a second to do so in order to accomplish her mission.

Then after running into a woman who waved her hand at her, and then looked her weird after she waved back, she arrived to her destination. The moment she introduced her key on the lock she had another flashback.

"_Hold it, young lady."_

"_Funny."_

"_What are you doing out so late?"_

"_What are you doing out so late?"_

"_What do you mean? I'm always out this late."_

"_Then you can tell me how to sneak in."_

"_Well, for one thing, stop tiptoeing around like a geek. Have a little dignity, Daria."_

"_If I had any dignity, do you think I'd be out here letting you try and teach me how to be cool?"_

"_Whatever."_

"_What's going on down there?"_

"_More threatening."_

"_Let me handle it. Darn it, what's going on down there?"_

"_Jake, you sound like such a geek."_

'My god, I acted like such a geek… I really hope that I was just pretending to be incompetent in the art of stealth.' As soon as she crossed the door she calmly analyzed her surroundings, the place would be well illuminated by the windows if the curtains weren't currently closed much to her relief; prying eyes sometimes saw the world through camera lens, but sometimes saw them thought a scope, and the later ones were regularly attached to a sniper rifle.

Once her immediate security was assured, the first thing she noticed was just how normal this place was, with an assortment of decorations that went from the expensive and tasteful to a few handmade articles that could only be considered as tacky, yet they were prominently displayed in the living room. Scattered they were many pictures of the family that lived here, some of those were hers, and always with an annoyed face, and so incredibly unphotogenic. Of course this being America, the place of honor was for the TV set.

Then she went to the kitchen, the fact that she was on a mission didn't obviate her need of sustenance, so she checked the pantry for something to eat, finding only a huge stock of frozen lasagna and other non perishable treats. Taking for herself all of the granola bars she then went to what she supposed it was an office.

The office was above everything functional, with a large desk of high quality wood, and a computer and printer set that, while not state of the art as far as the Farm agent was concerned, it was still top of the line for civilians. A bookshelf of the same kind of wood covered one of the walls, in it a mix of law, publicity, and leisure books, which ranged from 'Les Miserables' to some teen romance novels with covers that decidedly clashed with the rest. There were some high quality spirits in a showcase; she could also see a switch that would make the bottles shine from the bottom, giving them a luminescence effect.

In the desk there was a phone with an attached answering machine, so she pushed buttons to hear both the first the recorded message and then the calls received.

"Hello this is Quinn, I'm not going to be in this weekend so if you had a date with me… well I guess that I'll reschedule it if I'm interested, if not, tough luck." The voice was the one of a teen girl, and judging from the message a really egocentric one. Melody was relieved that this particular tone seemed to be a little out of the range of her current voice, she had played the part of both shallow and dumb people, but she didn't relish those occasions at all.

With that message there was no doubt that the people knew they would be gone for a while, and while that was almost an open invitation to rob the house, maybe the callers would give a little more information about their business than they'll would if they thought the family would be gone for a few hours.

"Quinn, stop playing with the answering machine! How this thing works? Let me see, maybe this one? Okay, next time buying it on Payday instead of to Jake's clients … You're calling to the Morgendorffer family; please leave your message after the tone. … Did I overwrite Quinn's message? … (A horn sounds in the background) … Jake, I'm coming!"

She couldn't help but to feel like smiling, this record was comedy gold, this is a funny family. 'No, it was a funny family to live with, I doubt that from now on they will laugh and fight and be just be normal, not for a long time, if ever.'

After that grim remainder of the odds she was playing with, she proceeded listening the calls made to the family during the weekend while she searched the papers on the desk for anything interesting.

Then she methodically checked the bunch of documents trying to find something useful without success. While they were some papers relating to personal and family data, and some others contracts from clients she could recognize as Mister Morgendorffer's, most of the papers were from Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter relating to a plethora of civil lawsuits.

The first of the messages was a dud, just a kid, Jamie, asking Quinn for a date on Saturday and hoping that she would reschedule as promised; it was such a pathetic oral display of sycophancy especially after hearing the recorded greeting she gave to guys like him. Messages two to six were variations on the first one, by even more boys with different levels of lovesickness.

Message number seven at least wasn't a teen drama. "Helen, this is Erik. Your daughter hanged on me on the cell phone, and I really need to talk you about the depositions we did over the Coldish Restaurant case, talk to me as soon as you arrive." The next three messages were a combination of both this guy Erik and a girl named Stacy who was asking if Quinn had already left for the mall. Melody felt a little sorry for the girl for being stranded there for at least two hours.

The next message was worth the effort, and she stopped her search in order to hear and listen it with her full attention.

"Yo! I call after barely returning with my life and Trent's from the expedition to one of the darkest places of the old U.S.A., that Midwestern cesspool forgotten by the civilized world and then occupied by the squatters of the Lane family. Since your irritant sister hasn't picked up the phone by now Daria, I must regretfully assume that unlike me you weren't able to escape camping the same way I escaped our extended family reunion. I must then offer my condolences and ask you to take heart; If I survived dozens of mad, annoying, judgmental and early rising Lanes, you can survive three Morgendorffers who already live with you; and unlike me if you can't tolerate that existence no more then you only need to hold a picnic basket up high and then call for the bears to eat you and end with your larger than usual misery, or better yet, to use Quinn instead of a basket and then enjoy the show. Just be careful with Quinn's head, is too thick and swelled and it could give those poor bears indigestion, and as far as I know they're on a protected sanctuary. 

The call was carefree and witty; something that would actually drew a smile from her face in most circumstances. She remembered the many times she had threatened to feed commies to hungry animals, even if she had never found a bear to do so with the ruskies, the irony on that would have been worth breaking on a zoo. However she did remembered the ordeal that the Morgendorffers suffered already, and she was in no mood for that.

She then went back to her investigation, turning the computer on and browsing in search of something relevant while using the blank cd's in one of drawers to copy as many files as possible for further study in a more secure location. Even when so distracted she couldn't help to keep thinking about the call and more important the caller.

The interesting thing about the call was that it was addressed to her alter ego and not to one of the other inhabitants of the house. Until now the few pieces of information she had been able to uncover from the life of Daria Morgendorffer painted an image of an introspective person who kept to herself, writing poetry, short dark stories and not even trying to fit with the rest of her peers, in fact the attempt had landed her in the so called Self-Esteem class. That was the kind of person that would be a ghost, invisible to everyone.

Letting the computer download and burn the files she went back to study the rest of the office. Once more following a hunch, after all they might be traces of her memory wanting to get free, she went behind the showcase and found there a metal fire safe with a combination lock, which she was able to open without even looking the numbers on the dial, inside she found insurance papers, a couple of credit cards once more in Jake's and Helen's name, and some other documents which she dismissed as unimportant after reading and memorizing numbers, PIN's and other miscellaneous information that might become relevant later. However the four grand in cash were a completely different matter.

"At least I can label the plan to obtain funds by robbing a bank as 'B'"

And wasn't a Jane Lane the other student which graduated from the Self Esteem Class with her according to the LHS newspaper? For some reason she had formed a bond with some random girl, something that definitely did not fit the profile she had done for her cover identity, and if the article in the Lowdown was right she had shared the class with her almost as soon as the last fashion column was published for the Highland High School newspaper by Daria Morgendorffer, and that couldn't be a simple coincidence. More important yet, there was this nagging feeling that Jane Lane was someone important to her.

"_He doesn't know what it means. He's got the speech memorized. Just enjoy the nice man's soothing voice."_

And she needed to find what, and how it was relevant to her current condition.

Finally considering the office as a dead end she took the cd and went upstairs.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

When she went up she saw an open bath up front and then she was faced with a choice left or right; to the right, there were two doors, one old and rickety and a newer one with bright white paint almost in front of the stairs. To the left there was a single door which looked larger by virtue of the floor distribution. She decided to start her search on the left.

The room to the left ended being the parents', so already used to the routine of the entire day she quickly and efficiently went through their stuff, finding only common things in the closet: clothes and shoes; self help books and a bunch of miscellaneous documents of scarce relevance; and a box hidden in the deepest part of their closet.

She had great hopes for the box, until she realized that the only thing it contained were a few adult toys and disguises. Completely normal for a healthy couple, after all she used the same toys and played the same games in a number of occasions, not all of them to the real perverts or during missions.

Even then for some reason she couldn't just quite suppress the full body shudder.

The only other thing even remotely interesting was an agenda from Helen Morgendorffer that she found in the middle of the bed; unlike the cheap one she found in Jake's office, this one was full to the brim with names, addresses and directions, once more solidifying her impression of her being quite more dedicated, successful and definitely more organized than her husband.

Or at least far more busy and workaholic if the fifteen minutes blocks for eating and family were an indication, if not then the large amount of those that were blacked out and exchanged by 'surprise meeting with Erik' certainly did the trick.

Finding nothing else that could be useful other than pocket change and knowing that most of the important stuff should have been on the office downstairs she decided to go to the other rooms.

Once that was done she went to the right, towards the other rooms. The first one, the one that she wasn't fond of for reasons she did not understood, was a girl's room in white and pink tones, with a four posts bed, a large vanity mirror with a dressing table full of cosmetics and hair products underneath it, and a closet so full of clothes that it couldn't even be closed. For a second of two she entertained the idea that this could be her room, but the 'I love me' wall full of photos told her that the occupant was the same girl that she met on the helicopter, Quinn Morgendorffer.

It was seeing things like this that depressed the most in her line of work. To know that innocent Americans were hurt by the actions of the enemies of the state was one thing, to see the room of a little girl that would never again be normal was completely different. She took a moment to watch carefully the different photos, some were of the girl alone posing like a model and some others with four different girls, 'probably her friends…' she thought.

While she didn't expect to found anything, training and experience told her to let no stone unturned so she searched the room with as much seal as the rest. The only things that she found other than clothes, fashion magazines and a couple of agendas so full that each one only had half of the alphabet, was a laptop computer and this time she didn't even checked it, she just took it and its carrycase, this was a both a source of information and a tool, and right now both were equally important to her.

The only other thing she found was an old photo hidden in the bottom of the drawer where the girl was nine or ten years old and she was hugging a slightly older and clearly annoyed girl with glasses.

She realized that the girl was probably Daria Morgendorffer, the real one from Highland, Texas and that this was a memento of the sisters. She went with the photo to the mirror and carefully examined the features between both of them.

"I had to admit it, the medics at the Farm do know their jobs; I look just like her" she conceded in ushered tones.

Leaving that piece of the girl's childhood in the bed, and wondering what the help happened to the original one, Melody decided to leave the room and the memories, but not before taking one of the smaller make-up travel kits the girl had to correct the mistake she did of not buying one in the morning.

Then she went to the last door, the one that she suspected belonged to her.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The room was unlike anything she expected to find, especially because until now she had thought that Daria Morgendorffer was a shy and creative girl with only a little bit of a dark side, at least according from the diverse writings in the one notebook she found after the crash, and therefore she was going to have a shy and demure room, maybe with a few books of poetry or literature here and there, a little less blatantly feminine that her sisters, but still girly.

Instead she found herself looking at dirty grey padded walls almost absorbing the light with the furniture, or more properly said, the lack of furniture beyond the bare minimum, giving the room the illusion of a larger space while keeping the nagging feeling of claustrophobia in the back of the head. There were bars on the windows, but those had been cut, and a closer look told her that they weren't removed recently; another look at the door told her even more, the old door was thicker than the norm for a room and at one time it was closed by two locks: a conventional yet sturdy one; and a bar to close it only from the outside. However by the four small holes they had already took the bar permanently; the other lock closed from the inside and by the patches on the wood, they had changed the older bigger mechanism for a less sturdy one meant for common rooms.

This wasn't a cell, at least not anymore.

Even then it wasn't a comforting place to stay, much less sleep. About the only things that gave the room the feeling of being lived in rather than holding someone there were the different posters pinned to the walls, even if they were as morbid as the rest of the room, with 'Kafka's Metamorphosis' sharing a wall with an old poster of a half dug skeleton from an archaeological site; incongruously there was a white sock incongruently sewed to the wall. The models of a realistic human heart and a piece of cheese from all the possible things completed the look.

The only thing that was congruent for a normal teenager was the mess in the floor, there were books and magazines and notebooks in piles, big and small, al around the room, with folded papers between some of them. At least the clothes were on its proper place in the small closet so it wasn't full out chaos, and a quick look confirmed the fears she had when she saw the clothes on the duffel bag she had rescued from the chopper, they were all small variations of the same outfit with the same orange t-shirts and grey skirts, there was even a clone of the jacket she had disposed in the morning. Nothing that was of use other than a black hoodie which almost spelled suspicious to anyone not in a ghetto but that she took anyway in case she desired to pass through a ghetto; and another set of older, more battered glasses, that were a little slender and of a less powerful prescription than her eyes currently needed but better than nothing.

She went to the computer on the small desk and just like in the office she downloaded as much information as she could, and there was a lot of information, ranging from a series of poems by Edgar Alan Poe to the Terrorist Cookbook, and from a digital copy of Black Beauty to the autobiography of her mentor Virginia Hall. And those were only the ones in the hard drive, there were also dozens of archives with such common names as school, writings, poetry and other more tantalizing such as idiocy, payback, and blackmail, among others.

She tried opening a few of them, but the computer itself far too slow and even reading from one of the smaller files would take far too long, so she just crammed a cd full of the files and hit the button to burn the files. Since the cd burner was just as slow she did have quite enough time to do a thoughtful search of the room and its contents.

Checking the books on the floor it was soon evident that there was a method to the mess in the room, while the books where just about everywhere they were separated by topic, with the history books and magazines together with the notebook of the respective class between them and the random pieces of paper were full of related notes. It was quite curious to find mercenary magazines between all of the mess; she would have thought that having those would be anathema for any cover affair, no matter just how nostalgic she felt about a Direct Action assignment.

Far more worrying were some of the notes in the margins of a few of the notebooks were snippets of her missions were written. Nothing that could be traced directly to her, nor that anyone without a Top Secret classification and the correct Code Word clearance would ever have a hope of understanding what did in Honk Kong, especially the part of the elevator smash, but still that kind of security breach just wasn't like her.

"Did someone was messing with my head before?"

But there was something missing, she would never just left the information out in the open, there should be something else inside the room, somewhere the inhabitants of the house wouldn't stumble on it, yet it was easy to access. She went and more carefully searched under the bed and behind every piece of furniture, but there was nothing hidden there. Then she went to the padded walls, cutting the fabric on the wall and then sewing it again after putting there whatever you wanted to keep from prying eyes was a perfect hiding place for things that you wanted out of sight but just a slash with a knife away in case of emergency.

It took a little while but she found on piece of padding sewed together with a thread that was whiter and newer than the rest, she was about to use her knife to cut the fabric when a bout of inspiration struck and she carefully pulled a loose corner in the otherwise seamless wall. She wasn't too surprised when the entire square of padding comes loose after a bit of effort, much less than the necessary to rip the fabric, and a very familiar sound. Velcro, she had used Velcro to linen her secret compartment, and done it so well that there were no indication of sagging or other telltale marks that a frequently visited hidden stash would leave to the discerning eye. Sometimes her cunning amazed even her.

Inside the wall instead of padding there was were a couple hundred bucks that she pocketed automatically, and a brand new diary, one that instead of the usual decorative padlock had a sturdier combination one probably bought at a hardware store. She tried some of her favorite four digit numbers at first, trying to find if one of them would be the correct one; numbers important to her, like the date when the Pueblo had been captured by the commies, and with it her dad, the cubicle that was her first office in the Farm before she had become one of the most important field officers and had been given a corner office, the number of confirmed kills she had performed in the line of duty (and she was close to reach the fifth digit), her day and month of birth weren't even worth considering since no sane field agent would use something so freely available, yet she dialed those too.

She was about to give up and use a brute force method, either dialing all the numbers systematically, or finding an appropriate heavy object and bashing it until either the lock, or the cover broke, when she just carelessly put her fingers on the dials and before she could even realize it introduced the correct number. Her fleeting memory sure was frustrating, but for time to time it actually worked in her favor.

Then she focused back in the diary, first of all checking the covers for any hidden documents and finding nothing, and then reading the first page. The contents while not enlightening, much to her disappointment, were interesting enough for her to read, maybe the clue she had been searching for the last two days would be hidden between the lines.

'Dear diary, I will call you dear diary, too cliché for my taste. I decided to buy you as a way to record my new start in this little town of Lawndale. I seriously thought of burning your predecessor to commemorate that I will never again see that piece of land founded in the deepest recess of hell called Highland, but then I realized that future generations will have trouble understanding just how utterly stupid was our generation in reality so instead I left it on a box that is surely going to be buried in the attic for the next few centuries so that future archeologists can find it on its original state.'

Then there was a brief description of the voyage from Texas to Lawndale, describing the long weekend of ennui and desperation she suffered on the moving van while her father was trapped with Quinn on the car (apparently Mrs. Morgendorffer was smart enough to get there on a commercial flight days before to talk with her new bosses). Her description of the house and the following assignment of a room that used to be the previous home of a schizophrenic shut-in with skillfully concealed enthusiasm once more brought a smile to her face before she realized the uselessness of the information available, no matter how interesting it was…

_I've said it before, I'll say it again: you have the coolest room._

_It's got pros and cons. You can't hurt yourself in here, but you can't hurt anybody else in here, either._

And yet she needed to keep reading, because one way or another, this lecture was stirring forgotten memories in her head, and that was far more important that any code or world conquest plan she had ever stolen before. To stop whoever had destroyed the Farm she needed to know what the hell was going on.

Her musing were interrupted the worst way possible by the sound of a car parking in front of the house breaching the comfortable silence she had been enjoying until now. Swiftly she went to the window to check the new arrival. What she saw made her heart frost.

It was a police patrol.

She had run out of time. Now the enemy was at the gates.


	9. Home Invasion II

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 07: Home Invasion II

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Frank Winston was annoyed. He had been less than five minutes to end his shift when a call from that asshole of Sergeant Reich, the chief's lapdog, came from the net, ordering him to go and play fetch for one of his big wigs that had smoked some bad weed and now send one of their cronies for a change of clothes and their insurance. And since said crony lacked a key he was authorized by the owner to break a window to enter, just like a burglar.

"Lucky me."

He remembered when entered the force in the eighties under the Old Man Burns, now he had been everything one could ask for a Chief of Police. He was the man who had seen the incoming threat of drugs, and had waged one nasty war to keep them out of the city. But then he had retired, and his successor, while just as good an officer wasn't as political savvy, and that had been his downfall. When one of his men had given a couple of black teens a beating in front of the media, no one expected that the reporters of Sick, Sad World would raise such a ruckus, and being the loyal man who he was, Chief Wiggum took a hard line in his desire to protect them and had driven the local black community to the edge of riots just like the ones not seen since L.A. The city mayor then had been forced to throw him out in order to maintain the peace. Some bastards from a TV show even had the gal to add to their show a bumbling and corrupt cop and named it after him!

His replacement more than a cop was a political animal, a man that had been relegated to be the guy send to all those useless community gatherings and petty thefts, were his lack of skills wouldn't endanger anyone. When the time to choose a new chief came, he was appointed by virtue of the color of his skin and the fact that he was at least known to some of the population.

And once he was given the command of the police department he started a series of reforms to supposedly improve the relations with the community, like firing one third of the local cops and hiring the same number of Black and Hispanic recently graduated rookies, throwing almost a decade of accumulated experience to the garbage, and by happenstance eliminating most of his potential competition once the crisis was over.

Only the most notorious 'closers' had been kept in the force, and they were so overworked with the important cases that they seldom have time for their families, much less to plot against the boss; only they and those officers too old and low on the totem to worth the effort, and money, of firing or retiring. They instead had been given a long and tedious course of sensitivity training, which he suspected was less to 'create a conscience between the police officers and the members of the community' and more to just remind everyone who was now the top cat.

Just like him.

He removed his vest, the damn thing always stuck in the most uncomfortable places when he was driving, and took the squad car to the address that Reich gave him. He could have done the thirty minutes drive, they had called him from the other side of the city, in less than five if he had been using the lights and the siren but he just knew that if it reached the ears of the Chief, or one of his lackeys, then he would get the excuse they needed to fire him without benefits and he would not give them the satisfaction, no matter how many pointless milk runs like this they gave him.

Finally reaching his destination he parked and after checking that the woman he had been told to met with hadn't arrived, he got out of the car, lighted one cigarette and waited for this Marianne Richmond.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody was intrigued; she had been ready to bolt out of Dodge the moment he saw the patrol arrive, but the desire to get the information inside the cd she was burning, had slowed her down enough for her to study the potential enemy in order to take him down and his actions indicated he wasn't after her. It had been five minutes since the cop has arrived and he didn't make any moves, threatening or otherwise, towards the house; neither did he looked as if he was preparing a trap and she just beat him to it, if something he looked as if he was waiting for someone.

She observed him from Quinn's room, not daring to move a muscle, even in the few occasions his gaze turned towards her general direction, humans tended to notice movement far easier than shapes, so it was safer for parts of her head to be exposed through the window than to try to cover herself and therefore calling his attention. It was then that a yellow van arrived and parked behind the patrol, and this one wasn't police nor did it show any of the telltale signs of a governmental or cover ops vehicle. If anything judging by some of the stickers and the existence of a plush cat on the backseat it was a either a family van or one of the most cunning disguises she had ever seen for an urban operation in a 'nice yet not too expensive' side of town.

From the van a blonde woman in her late twenties came out, looking nervous and a little hurried. The reactions from the cop were another telltale sign that this was an atypical situation; he wasn't acting with the kind of respect that someone is due to a superior, or someone in the position of screwing you later, or at least that was what his body language was telling. If anything the way he was moving resembled more of someone resigned to do a chore, but is not afraid of showing his displeasure to others.

She glanced at the computer screen, more than 40% left and no way to tell how long it would take for them to try to come in. Considering for less than a heartbeat she decided to extract the cd and disconnect the computer, there just wasn't enough time left, and unless she was lucky as hell there would be no more answers coming from the room or the computer, but maybe she would be able to ask the couple of unwanted guests.

Once she dealt with them…

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Marianne felt more than a little sheepish when she arrived to the house of her boss and discovered that the cop that Helen had promised was already there, waiting for her with an expression that could be described as annoyed yet trying, and failing, not to show it.

"Marianne Richmond?" He asked as he stepped on the almost expended cigarette with his heel in such a way that he virtually implied that the thing he wanted to crush was on the woman in front of him.

"Yes officer, I'm sorry for the delay, but the traffic was a bit slower than I thought it would be on Sunday.

"About time you arrived, I'm already fifteen minutes over my shift, and I don't appreciate finding myself expending my off time here. Now, may I see an I.D.?" It wasn't a question, and it wasn't polite.

Marianne rummaged her purse for a moment before getting her driver's license, Helen had warmed her that it would be needed, plus it was just common sense to ask for one before breaking into a house in her behalf. "Here, officer…?" She left the question open in the hope that the grumpy man would give any kind of personal information. He was creeping her with his contemptuous attitude.

Said attitude didn't change a bit even after being satisfied that the woman in front of him was indeed the one he had been ordered to wait, as he wrote her name and address on a small notebook he was carrying on his pocket he start laying the rules of the game. "Winston ma'am, please get your purse back in your car, I was told that you are going to be getting clothes and papers from the house in addition to a photograph that I'll be taking to the station. You're not allowed to take money or other kind of valuables out of the house; if you do it will be considered as a felony. Once you pick up all the items you require you'll show them to me before we left the premises, I'll make an itemized list which you'll sign. Don't force me to call a female officer on the radio to make a strip search; no one will enjoy it or the subsequent fallout." It was the last part, delivered with a complete lack of either humor or lechery in his voice

That said, while Marianne hurried to her van, he went to the passenger seat of his patrol and extracted a crowbar from under his vest, which he had taken off shortly before being called for this little waste of time.

Walking towards the door he took his tool and with a fluid maneuver practiced on more than a few raids on crack houses he introduced the flattened point on the space between the door and the frame and with barely a sound he broke the lock. A burglar would have been impressed, Marianne certainly was.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Upstairs the already alert Melody heard clearly as day the sound of the door cracking, was hiding in the bathroom behind the shower's curtain, hoping that if her enemies discovered her she could use the tight space as well as her own little size to even the odds a little in case of a hand to hand battle.

She had little time for planning how to defeat the people who were breaking bellow. She saw scant possibilities of defeating a foe using a bulletproof vest and a semi-automatic pistol by head shooting him with a one shot flare gun which was so inaccurate that hitting the side of a barn hard on a good day; also fighting hand to hand a fully grown and trained adult with atrophied muscles and even worse reflexes was an unpalatable proposition as far as she was concerned, knife or no knife, he would only need to fend her off long enough to bring his gun to bear. And that was not counting the woman, who as far as she knew could be a fully trained assassin.

She would be pressed to defeat these enemies under her particular circumstances and if the situation was different she would be glad not to be found and just gather whatever intel she could before calling it a day, but if she allowed herself to cower before a couple of unsuspecting goons she might as well save her enemies the trouble and perform an unassisted lobotomy on herself. Using a wooden spoon…

She would have to rely on the small surprise she left behind as well as her sense of timing.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The first thing that the cop did after they entered the house was to turn on the lights, they weren't thieves sneaking in the night and they weren't going to act like ones. Then he gave a good look to the house, which he admitted to himself it wasn't how he envisioned it.

It lacked the opulence that he would have expected from someone with the connections needed to get the ass of the higher up and moving. It was also quite more homely that he imagined, with those little details that separated a broken home from the others. He saw the little souvenirs and knickknacks that a family picked up with the time. Not exactly the kind of place that would breed a whole family of junkies.

The woman that until now had been quite meek and passive started moving with more of a purpose, going straight towards what looked like a small library or office and swiftly dialed the phone there. Then she put it on speaker.

"This is the Oakwood's General Hospital, if you know the exte…" She didn't let the recording finish before dialing four extra numbers.

The phone couldn't ring even once before it was answered. "Hello, Helen Morgendorffer speaking." The person on the other side of the phone sounded haggard and battered. Even then the tone of voice told him that he did not want to face her when angry.

"Mrs. Morgendorffer, I have arrived to your house alongside Officer Winston as per your instructions, and I'm right now in the office. Could you tell me what do you need from here?"

"Okay, the first thing would be the emergency papers, the backup credit cards and the money inside the fireproof box." Before she could continue Frank decided to intervene. "Ma'am, I was told that we would only need to retrieve papers and clothing from the premises, I'm not authorized to extract any kind of valuables, neither money nor credit cards." He was already bracing himself from the incoming explosion, but the woman at the other side just cursed so quietly he couldn't quite catch the words other than: "…Of course you can't…" Then talking again in a normal voice she replied. "There is no problem officer, I'll contact the bank tomorrow morning, for a money order to the local branch I hope that my I.D. will be enough to get a replacement card."

"As I was saying the box should be behind the showcase. The combination is Quinn and Daria's day and month of birth, inverted. I already gave you the numbers."

The assistant went to the showcase and retrieved the box, and without any fanfare dialed the combination and opened it. They immediately realized there was a problem.

It was Frank who dared to voice it first. "Ma'am, we just opened the box, it got the papers and the cards, however there isn't any money inside."

"Are you sure isn't mixed with the rest of the paperwork? There were four thousand dollars there?!"

This time it was the woman, Marianne, the one who backed me up. "No doubt Helen, the money isn't here."

"God damn it Jake, I told you it was for emergencies!" This time she was unable to hold back her voice completely, before reigning herself and once more taking the more reasonable, and resigned route, "Okay, you weren't going to be able to deliver the money anyway. But the papers are there right?"

"Yes, yours, Jake's, Quinn's and even Daria's."

"Thank god for small favors. Marianne, could you please go to the living room and take the album marked as 'Highland farewell' from under the TV? The most recent photo of Daria is there." Hearing how her voice broke when telling the name of her missing daughter Frank felt bad for the mother at the other side of the line.

"I go for the album ma'am; you can stay here checking the rest of the papers."

It didn't take too long to find the correct album; they were neatly ordered and clearly labeled. He took a quick peek and saw a multitude of images of two adults who he guessed were the parents and of two girls, one a cute redhead always smiling to the camera, and the other a sour brunette with thick glasses that from one photo to another become suddenly thicker.

On the way back he felt a bit hungry, and for a moment his gaze went to the kitchen. He was tempted to go there and steal a sandwich, but after the self righteous speech he had done outside he find it a little too hypocrite for his own taste.

When he returned to the office he decided not to make himself a burden in there while Marianne, who he had learned by hearing the rest of the instructions done by her boss was a secretary, recollected an impressive pile of papers and neatly organized them on a pile of colored folders in the center of the desk.

"Well, I think is everything minus my agenda, I guess that I leave it at either my room or the kitchen."

He had to hold his mouth at the mention of the kitchen, he was willing to volunteer his services to search the missing agenda, and maybe liberate later some food. But the room of a woman often had jewelry and other valuables and, while he didn't think that Marianne would steal those, he needed to keep an eye anyway.

"Also don't forget to bring a couple of days' worth of clothes for all of us. The doctors say that the drugs are going to purge the toxins out of Jake's by tomorrow morning at the latest, I don't want to risk it, especially since they had to burn all the gear that came in contact with the wilderness."

"Marianne, don't forget that my clothes must be coordinated perfectly. After all I, I mean we, have suffered the last thing that we need is to look as I, a mean we, feel." The voice belonged to a teen girl, and he immediately classified her from his time doing D.A.R.E. duty as a diva.

Then he heard the angry voice of the mother from the speaker, "Quinn, give me back the phone, or I swear I'll tell them to bring you the clothes out of the laundry room."

"Eawww…"

"Don't worry Quinn; I'll try to get you some nice clothes for you." Marianne had a silly smile on her face as she said that. "We're going to the second floor; I'll call you if something else happens Helen."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody could clearly hear two sets of footsteps going up the stairs, a heavy one that she could bet belonged to the policeman, and a different one with the distinct cadence of a woman's heels, the small ones that were a compromise between comfort and an extra inch of apparent height. Her prey had gone upstairs together, and therefore would be harder to defeat, much less to catch one of them alive.

She would have to be patient and hope that she could force open a window of opportunity.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Marianne was still a little unbelieving of just how normal her boss home was in reality; considering the way she treated everyone in the office, herself included, she would often imagine that her house would be an ordered and impersonal place, with law books and other legal paraphernalia, a small cot alongside her office for sleep, and a large mug of black coffee on hand for her to not use the cot at all. And maybe some bars to keep people inside, after all more than once she had to ask permission to go to the bathroom. However looking at her room she could see all those little sentimental details that could be gathered by a couple and no one else.

She could feel Winston behind her, so she let her little fantasies aside for the moment and went back to work searching for the remaining stuff on the list, starting with the missing agenda.

"Officer Winston, while I'm looking for Helen's things, could you please help me prepare an overnight bag for Jake?"

"Yes ma'am." At least the cop didn't sound as resentful of his assignment as the beginning, even if he was just as formal.

They expended the next few minutes in peace, putting the clothes inside the one huge suitcase remaining in the closet. As soon as it was done she went trough the room searching for the missing agenda without luck.

"I can't find it anywhere!"

"Have you looked under the bed?" Was the useful advice of Winston, but it was just as useless.

"I think is safe to say that the agenda isn't here. If it's not in the kitchen I'll go to the office for the one is there; is not as complete being only the entries that Helen makes me copy on the firm's ledger but I'll do I hope."

"Now what?"

"I guess that now we go for the girl's clothes and leave. After this I still need to drive to Oakwood." That said she leaved the room with the cop behind her carrying the suitcase.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Now she could hear their voices, even if the door prevented understanding them. They were moving, probably searching the rooms for something, for the lack of ruckus she assumed that they wanted to leave evidence as much as she did, and therefore they were restricted on the actions they could perform, yet they weren't worried of the noise or the fact that their presence was obvious to any neighbor.

She would have to ask the woman about their rules of engagement after she subdued her.

She checked her watch, in a few more minutes she would ask as many questions as she deemed necessary.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Collecting the things clothes from both of the girl's rooms was piece of cake, even if he left that particular job to Marianne while he limited himself to carrying the suitcase.

'It's better this way; no way can I know what goes with what on that monstrous closet.' He thought, remembering just how many different clothes were inside the room, and how the only time he tried to help he did made a faux pass with some pink garment that he still had no idea why it was wrong, something to do with fall and summer and god only knew what else. Her current partner attempts to explain what she was looking for were in Chinese as far as he was concerned.

Once she had selected a couple of nice sensible outfits they leaved the room and opened the front door. The difference between both sisters' bedrooms was greater than the one between day and night; in fact he could not imagine two places as different at these ones. Both adults were left speechless for a moment before Frank broke the silence.

"Should I call Child Protective Services.? Because this is quite weird." He was more amused than anything; the creature comforts at sight were more than enough for him not to be overly concerned about the treatment of the owner of the room.

Marianne's laughter then filled the room, even if his joke wasn't that funny to begin with. Soon enough she explained. "Helen is, well, not the easiest boss to work with; a total workaholic if there was ever one. Often Imagine that her home was either a mad house or a prison, and truth to be told I almost expected to see one today. And now this… At least it explains why she once said that one more time explaining the law to Erik, our immediate superior, and she would need to sleep in Daria's room from now on." That finally broke the ice between both of them as they shared an honest smile.

This time the process of selecting something from the wardrobe was far less complex, it seemed that the girl only had one set of clothes seven times over. Even then he distracted himself with one familiar magazine on the floor. It was the latest number of Brutal Mercenary; General Buck Conroy is one crazy violent loony, but he knows his guns like nobody's business, and one of these magazines had been the deciding factor in buying an All American Smith & Wesson Model 910 for a sidearm instead of the M-9s that the department had acquired cheap from the army.

Then after struggling a little to get the remaining outfits inside the old trunk, they leaved the room. It was then that Murphy decided to strike; the handle of the suitcase suddenly broke falling from his hands and spraying a small amount of clothes in the floor. While Marianne helped pack again, I noticed something else missing from what she was going to take to her boss' family.

"I think that we're missing some shaving cream and a razor."

"You're right; also I think Helen and Quinn will appreciate some nice toiletries."

"Go see if there are some in the bathroom while I get the rest of this mess sorted out."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody tensed when she heard the door opening and the lights turned on, she was quite fortunate that the way the bulb was positioned it projected the shadow of the woman entering the bathroom, and even more important concealing her own shape.

She could feel her heart beating so fast that an irrational part of her mind felt that it would explode out of her chest like on a fancy horror movie. She forced herself not to swallow her split, not to breathe harder, and most important than all, not to jump and kill her with the knife she was holding. She had no doubt that she would be able to defeat her with no trouble at all in such enclosed space, but even if she killed her silently, she could clearly heard his partner the cop outside, and that meant that the door was open. And as soon as she killed her, he would probably turn and shoot the hell out of her when she was weighted down by the body, a perfect target.

Taking her hostage was out of the question too, she didn't know how high or low were either of them on the totem pole and by their interactions outside was pretty clear there was no emotional connection, a cardinal rule of hostage is 'never take one that the other side does not care about killing'

"Shaving cream? Here…" It seemed that the woman was searching for certain articles, but for the love of god she couldn't understand why did she wanted shaving cream, or cologne, or shampoo…

'Shit'

She saw the shadow approaching the shower, and she moved as fast as she dared to the opposite side of the shower head. She might be forced to fight after all.

The curtain opened itself a little and she saw a hand going for one of the bottles in a basket hanging from the shower's tube.

"Here is it, I wish I could afford this brand, it smells delicious. Oh well…"

Unlike what most people thought spies believe in luck, both good and bad, even if they don't depend on it, and to not being had on this occasion was a minor miracle as far as she was concerned.

As the woman leaved the bath closing it behind her, she relaxed the grip in her blade. It was almost time to act, and she was sure that it would be on her terms…

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Once they had ordered the things that felt from the suitcase including the toiletries they went downstairs, straight to the kitchen in order to search for the missing agenda in the last place where Helen remembered using it.

And for the second time there weren't any hits. No matter how hungry was Frank feeling, there was no way he would ask for a bite, at least not when the house owner would probably bill the department for anything missing, food included. Much less when the owner had already loss four grand that supposedly were in her fire safe.

Marianne was about to make a call to her boss to tell her the third set of bad news of the trip, the first being that they couldn't give her the emergency money and the second that said money was missing anyways, when suddenly the TV turned itself on, and she could also heard some noise upstairs.

Marianne checked her clock, "Seven thirty; must be their alarms. Where is that remote?"

"You turn off the TV, I'm going upstairs."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody smiled as she heard a simple set of footsteps, her gambit has been successful, by turning the alarm on in her doppelganger's room and in the TV she had managed to separate both operatives. She had already opened the curtain and stood in front of the bathroom's door.

Once he passed with his back to the bath she would strike.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

As he walked towards the door where the sound was emanating Frank felt his heart accelerate, unlike the last time he hadn't considered necessary to turn the lights on, he was only going in and out after all. But now the corridor seemed more sinister, and the room that had amused him before now was creepy as hell, especially with the sound of the bell causing a weird resonance effect in the padded walls, which apparently weren't as soundproof as he expected.

Almost by instinct his hand went towards his gun and he unbuttoned the strap of the holster, entering as if clearing a room during a raid. His eyes covered every inch of the room, and he even checked the closet just in case. Once he was satisfied that it was only his imagination he went and stopped the clock racket.

"Great, now I'm getting paranoid in my old age." He huffed, half in annoyance and half in relief.

Berating himself all the way back to the stairs with his heart still beating like crazy, he was just about to get down when he heard the door.

'Click'

With adrenalin still cursing through his veins he turned around in record time to see it. He couldn't distinguish if it was a boy or a girl; neither could he see the color of its skin nor apparent age.

He could only see a knife in the hand of the target coming straight towards him, too close to issue a warning, too close to even properly aim his gun, almost too close to even fire from the hip.

'Almost.'

**BANG!**

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

I know that Daria got rid of all the evidence linking her to Buck Conroy, but I bet that as soon as she was sure that neither her mother nor Quinn would remember the incident she started buying them again.


	10. Home Invasion III

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 08: Home Invasion III

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

As soon as she opened the door Melody knew she had screwed up, the cop was three feet farther than she had intended and while on the big scheme of things it was not what could be called a big distance, in close quarters combat it meant the difference between stabbing an unsuspecting dupe in the back and going hand to hand with a man that more than doubled her weight and half as tall.

Plus it seemed that the officer was quite the gunslinger, it took him less than a heartbeat to turn around, recognize the threat she posed and shot at her from the hip, much to her chagrin a truly remarkable display of training and instincts when reacting to an unknown situation from zero.

Later when she had a few moments to think about the combat, and for the first time since this debacle started, Melody was sincerely glad to be in the body of a petite teen instead of an average sized one. It was the training of the cop was the one thing that ended betraying him. Few agencies have targets the size of children available in the shooting range and those who do more often than not use them to represent innocent bystanders and hostages, not enemies.

The result of that particular quirk of training was the way he instinctually aimed a tad too high; if he had been fighting against a fully grown man there was little doubt that the shot would have gone at the center of his body mass, hitting a lung or maybe even his heart; if he had been fighting a regular sized teenage girl then his bullet would have gone through a shoulder incapacitating her.

As it was the shot had passed a hairsbreadth from her neck, so close than her clothes were stained with cordite and only the adrenalin going through her veins prevented her from stopping in shock. Using the impetus she had gathered in her charge she didn't allow him the chance to adjust his aim for a second shot before she was upon him, thrusting with the knife in her right hand exactly where his heart was.

This time it was a desire to go to the harder target, the heart, instead of the easier to reach belly what almost cost her the fight. A barely interposed left arm in a desperate block made her miss the correct point of entry in which she would be able to slip the blade with no resistance, and her lack of muscle memory didn't allow her to properly redirect her strike; instead her knife was deviated slightly to the side, sliding on a rib in an outward angle that made her lose her grip just as she had predicted it would happen with the pummel that was too large for her small hands.

Even then fortune decided to favor her, because even if this particular officer was tough enough to keep fighting even after the large slice she had carved on his chest, and he was indeed that tough, the reflexive step backwards he took plus the impact that the girl imparted during their clash was enough for him to fall from the stairs almost taking Melody with him if she hadn't been able to get a hold of the handrail at the last second.

It was the fact that he felt on an angle the only reason that his neck wasn't broken by the fall, the weight of his body steering him to the left and making him crash against the handrail with enough force to split it in half, and breaking his arm in the process, before bouncing in the opposite direction to fall in the lower floor more or less on his nose breaking it and getting a nasty concussion but avoiding any major spinal injuries.

For a moment she stared into the sprawled form of the policeman on the floor, hearing him moaning in pain despite the sound of the shot still ringing on her ears, hurting but still alive. Then her gaze found his semiautomatic less than a foot from his body and she was running down the stairs at her best adrenalin fueled speed before just lunging towards it just in time to hold the gun that less than five seconds ago almost killed her and aim the very confused form of the blonde in front of her.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

After officer Winston left to turn off whatever was doing the racket upstairs Marianne searched for the remote for a few seconds before just using the off button of the TV. Doing so she noticed something curious.

'Weird,' she thought, 'why does the alarm is set for 7:30 PM?'

Dismissing it as a silly mistake from the Morgendorffers she went once more to the office to make another call to Helen. "Miss Morgendorffer, we already prepared the overnight bags for the family, and I got your papers ready, however we couldn't found your agenda anywhere."

"This is getting better and better, isn't it?"

"I could get most of the recent numbers from the firm's ledger."

"You're right, is time for it to be used for something more than billing unauthorized phone calls, but I need to contact the rest of Jake's family's as well as mine, and I make a point of never calling them in office hours," and in a lower, more bitter voice, "or at all if I can help it."

"If you give me their names I'll get them in the directory."

"First one would be my mother in law Ruth Morgendorffer, her son is ill, no matter how much I…" Marianne was distracted from the conversation by a short, sharp, noise coming upstairs, followed by a much closer crash and crack that gave her a bad feeling.

"Just a second Helen, something wrong."

Without waiting from a response form her boss she rushed the stairs, and what she found horrified her. Officer Winston was sprawled on the floor with one arm in an unnatural angle and a growing stain in his uniform. She was about to go and help him, or call an ambulance, or something when she saw a dark figure run down the stairs and without bothering to slow down kneeling and taking something from the ground.

What the person took was immediately evident as she pointed the gun to her.

"Hands up." The voice was soft, yet it would be hard to describe the amount of sheer menace that those few words could carry. Even as she did as told, she realized that those words were uttered by a woman. No, a girl.

"Lay down on the floor... slowly." As soon as she hit the floor she was there, touching her with surprisingly small hands, and said hands were trembling, she could also heard her panting as if she was out of breath she noted with a mixture of hope and dread. It could mean that she was tired, scared and unwilling to harm her, or she could be scared and tired enough to do something stupid.

Once she was done palming her for weapons or something, she went and did the same with the policeman, while from her position from the floor she could still not see her face, she could see her checking his pockets with swift movements, getting amongst other things the notebook where he recorded her name and address and two ammunition magazines and a pair of handcuffs from pouches on his belt.

Only his moans and the occasional movement of his head allow her to see that his short time friend was still alive and moving, but he definitely wasn't okay. Gathering a lifetime of courage she voiced her thoughts, "He needs a hospital, please…"

"Come here." Her captor decided not to acknowledge her plea. She was about to stand when she stopped her.

"Don't stand up, crawl here," and she had no choice but to do as told.

"Who are you?"

"Marianne Richmond." Then she arrived alongside the fallen cop. Without preamble her kidnapper shackled her hand to the policeman's using his own handcuffs.

"Tell me Miss Richmond, what were you doing inside the house."

"I came for a few things for my boss. Please, Officer Winston needs help."

"Right now the officer got a broken arm and a gash on his side that, while nasty, didn't cut through any important organs and therefore he's probably going to live, something that I don't care one way or another. However I can tell by his eyes that he also got a concussion when I threw him from the stairs; how severe I don't know, but what I know is that it won't allow him to answer my questions in a coherent manner, and therefore he is useless to me. I recommend you not to become useless as well." With that comment, done with the same level of mercy a shark would show to a goldfish, any hopes that she could plea to the morality of the girl were dashed.

"Now I need to go for a few things, you can help by putting him against the wall opposite from the stairs before I get back; you may also use that time to provide basic first aid. If you try something else I will kill him and then I'll shot you somewhere painful and eventually lethal."

As soon as the girl turned her back and climbed the stairs Marianne then stood up as fast as she could and half dragged Wilson to the wall, thankful for the fact that he had just enough strength to half stagger his way, which meant that while he was moving worst that a drunk sailor she didn't need to content with his whole weight, something she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to do anyway.

Then as she cut pieces from her skirt to dress his wounds she waited anxiously for her captor's return.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody saw how the policeman was carried away from the stairs while she went to the upper floor to pick up her things, by letting the woman help her partner she removed them from a position where, if desperate enough, she could assault her on her way down and maybe win despite her obvious fear and lack of physical abilities.

'Look who's talking,' a small part of her in the back of her head whispered in a monotone voice.

She despised her newfound weakness now more than ever; she was sure that while searching for weapons her prisoner must have realized that her hands were trembling almost uncontrollably, for that matter the fact that she was almost completely out of breath for about ten seconds worth of fighting was hard to miss. The final insult was that she was uncertain that if she had tried to escape at one point or another she would have been able to subdue someone who probably was a harmless civilian tied to a (half) dead weight without resorting to shoot her.

Then she arrived to the scene of her first real hand to hand fight during this particular operation, or at least the first one she currently remembered. As she picked her bloodied knife she decided to focus on the most positive aspects of the encounter such as the fact that while her body had not been completely up to the task, her tactical mind was as sharp as ever. Even with the added complication of the carpeted floor throwing her calculations on the relative position of the cop by some critical feet, she had been able to set a hastily thrown ambush successfully. Not many people were able to bring a knife to a gunfight and leave walking.

She was about to clean the blood out of the knife with her clothes when she decided that maybe it was better to let it like that to get an additional edge when interrogating the woman, Marianne. It was ironic, but the more scared she was the safer it would be for both of them. If her answers were truthful and she didn't try anything stupid like trying to escape, she would not be forced to kill her.

Right now she had a little time, there had been a single shot inside the house, and the entire upper floor was carpeted and had its windows closed, outside the house people would hear a muffled sound, barely stronger than a shot on the TV, and with the wrong sound. In the middle of an upper middle class neighborhood the chances that someone would recognize the sound for what it was minimal. What worried her were their superiors, if either Officer Winston or Miss Richmond were on a schedule and if they didn't check on time then someone might end missing them.

Entering once more to the bathroom she could clearly see the path that the bullet took after missing her, going through the open door and the shower's curtain, to embed itself on the wall. Just two inches down, or half a second more to aim… She was damn lucky.

Fighting off another shudder that had nothing to do with adrenalin she went to the basin and poured water from it, throwing some to her face and even drinking a little, she didn't fear cholera here as much as in Cambodian jungles she had visited, after that she gathered her backpack and the computer's case she had borrowed from the Morgendorffer's daughter and turned back where she had left the pair.

On the way down she extracted a bottle of water she had purchased earlier in the morning, her backpack was already a little too heavy with her bounty and drunk from it as she mentally cataloged the most relevant questions she had to ask to Marianne. No, not Marianne, the prisoner; she could not allow herself to feel pity for others right now, pity let to sloppiness and sloppiness was death when operating without backup to catch the screw-ups.

The woman hadn't been idle while she was gone, she had indeed carried the cop to the wall and she had used her own clothes to try to stop the blood pouring from his side and to let his head in a more comfortable position. Her inexperience with first aid was evident to even the amateurs, both in the way she wasn't applying enough pressure on wounds than thankfully weren't particularly life threatening, and in the fact that she was clearly more concerned about the irrelevant knife wound instead of worrying more about his arm, which she could actually aggravate with her actions.

"Be careful. The cut is shallow, there the ribs did their job, but if you keep moving his broken arm like that he might end losing it." To her credit, even if she was crying and clearly scared, she immediately stopped what she was doing and realized that while not really putting undue stress on the arm, she hadn't let it on a stable position earlier. Good, giving her hope, even if it was probably just an illusion, that there would be an 'after' would weaken her resolve to keep information for herself.

She used the moment of frantic activity to check the contents of the big suitcase that they had been carrying outside, finding there only clothes and other mostly useless paraphernalia. After more than enough time has passed for Richmond to reposition the moaning cop back into a more comfortable position she decided to start the interrogation in earnest.

"Well Miss Richmond, could you tell me who do you work for? The truth please, you don't want me to catch you lying." The woman had caught sight of the knife, as well as the blood staining it and she was fixating on her hands, probably too distracted to lie.

"In the Law Firm of 'Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter', I'm a secretary working on their corporative law department. I'm also the mother of two, Mike and Oscar, please."

"Oh, and why does a secretary needs to get inside a house, especially with a cop?, because I didn't find a search warrant with him, and even if he had one, a law firm would send someone with a little more rank to represent them." Her story had many holes, but depending of how did she covered them she would get an inking of her true intensions.

She was looking down towards the cop, evading looking at her, when she answered the question. "My boss suffered an accident a few days ago, and she ask me to come here to get some papers and personal items. Officer Winston was called to escort me and open the house."

The answer infuriated Melody, she knew exactly what kind of accident the owners of this house had suffered, and how improbable was that any of them would ever recover. "And tell me, which papers would be worth so much effort to get."

Needing to see her eyes when she answered the question to make sure that she wasn't trying to get one pass her she raised the secretary's head with the flat of the knife, however her reaction was quite unexpected.

"Oh my god, Daria!?"

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Until now most of the errant that Marianne was doing in her house had been a complete disaster. As if she hadn't had enough problems before.

Jake had probably borrowed the emergency cash they had on the safe, probably thinking that such an emergency might never come, a sin she had committed herself, even if she wouldn't admit it unless under oath and with supporting physical evidence. And due to the restrictions that the police had imposed, she couldn't even get the credit cards.

Then her agenda was missing, she was damn sure that she let it on her bed, or was it on the kitchen when preparing sandwiches for the trip? Whatever. The problem was that neither Marianne nor the cop were able to find it, and while Marianne's idea of using her ledger to get the numbers of the most recently called clients and friends was quite good, the fact was that the people she really needed to call were the ones that she was barely in speaking terms, and therefore they would need to hunt down on the directory of three different states. And she couldn't even start coordinating the search because she had been left hanging.

Helen was barely holding her anger in check, if she hated something was to be left waiting in the line, even more when she knew just how expensive the call would be; and for her secretary to be the one doing it… She couldn't even make out through the phone what was she talking with the cop, in fact she couldn't even make his voice at all. For all she knew, they could be checking the family album and laughing at the pictures.

Well, it was going to take all of her willpower to keep herself from scolding her until Marianne was a shivering mess, only the fact that she was doing her a non work related favor outside of office hours stopped her from screaming her name until she picked up again.

What else could go wrong?

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"Oh my god, Daria!?"

Not even the knife touching her chin was able to restrain her from saying the name out loud. Now that she could see for the first time the face of her captor she was able to immediately recognize the characteristic glasses and the eyes behind them. She could barely believe it, the girl who was holding her hostage was no other than the very same reason she had come to Helen's house in the first place.

But her hair, her clothes and her entire poise were completely different; hell she hadn't recognized her voice at all without that sarcastic monotone she always used, it now was filled with cold aggression; more emotional, but at the same time far more impersonal than ever before.

"Oh my god Daria, it's me Marianne. What happened to you?"

"Then you do know me. Umm, I wonder…"

'She's thinking about it. Maybe she'll let me go. Helen told me she's a good girl…' One time Daria had shamed her mother enough that she had been able to get out of work on time, a practical impossibility, and while she had been sure that her main motivation was to shame her mother, she did chose to do so in a way that indirectly helped her.

"There's an old saying, 'farming looks mighty easy when…'" The odd phrase came out of the blue, and for a few seconds her mind was blank. Then she spoke again.

"I guess that you know Daria but you don't know me..." Her eyes, that for a moment had relaxed, hardened again; Helen told her about the hallucinogen berries and the fact that she had escaped medical assistance after attacking the paramedics.

She wasn't dealing with the sarcastic girl she had only briefly met on those occasion either she went to her boss's house to deliver some papers when both of her children were under house arrest and she had been demolishing her competitive boss in Scrabble. She wasn't the girl who usually said out loud those complains Marianne often though about Helen but wasn't able to voice. Right now she was dealing with a desperate, delusional girl with a gun and that was unable to recognize her.

"Where were we? Oh yes, tell more about the papers you were ordered to gather."

"Daria, you need help, you ate some hallucinogen berries. Please let me take you to the hospital!"

The girl limited to show angle the knife so the light reflected on the blade, making the bloodstains on it stand up; the sight of the blood stopped her pleas out cold. "Limit your answers to my questions. I'll ask you only once and only once more. For what are the papers you were ordered to get?"

"They're replacement I.D.s, their medical insurance policy, and one of your photos for the paper."

"How did your boss was able to get a cop to help you? Usually the police department does not like to lend a sworn officer to do a milk run."

"I… I don't know for sure, Helen said that Erik called in a favor. Daria, Helen is really worried that you're missing, extremely worried, I never heard her like that Daria."

"Helen, you mean Miss Morgendorffer?" Marianne could do nothing more than nod.

"And tell me, did you saw her at one point or another when she asked you for the papers?"

"I… She was calling me from the hospital at Oakwood's."

Her voice was calm, eerie calm, when she answered her. "I see… You know, I find hard to believe that Helen Morgendorffer would call you. The last time I saw her she was completely out of her mind, tortured and raped until every word out of her mouth was nothing but gibberish. That kind of damage cannot be healed in a year of therapy, much less in a day. Her husband and daughter were no better, and I consider it a miracle that the youngest, Quinn, wasn't raped as well by those sadistic animals. "

Her voice was calm and modulated, unnaturally so. But the hatred on her eyes was beyond anything she had ever seen in her life, not even of those occasions when she had come face to face with defendants that had lost everything in a trial against one of the firm's lawyers.

She was now sure that the girl was going to kill her.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody saw the terrified form of Marianne and this time she couldn't stop herself from thinking of her as a human being; it was obvious that she sincerely believed that the person who did that call was her boss, she could see it on her eyes, and that her reasons to be here were completely legitimate on her mind.

When, at the beginning of their chat she saw Marianne recognizing her, for a moment she had a slight glimmer of hope that she was part of the administrative staff of the farm, someone that had managed to escape and was looking for clues of what was going on. That hope had been enough for her to compromise operational security and quote _Eisenhower's old creed of farmers: 'Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.' She just needed to misquote the second part in any way, while stressing certain words for the code to be recognized._

_But the answer never came, and all Farm personnel were trained to properly respond to the challenge, no matter their specialty. To not do so meant that she was either an enemy, which her reactions made highly improbable, or an innocent bystander._

She was a disposable prop to bring their policeman here to check for the Intel she had compiled on their organization. The next logical step would be for Marianne, mother of Mike and Oscar, to have a simple unrelated car accident, a tragedy occurring just after she and the 'innocent' cop had parted ways. Who knew, depending on the method used the kids could be accompanying their mother.

If she hadn't been here…

The cold blooded calculation to do so was something that made her blood boil. She would find the sick monster that created such a complex plot and she would destroy it, painfully.

At the same time the plot itself gave her some useful insights of the scale of the operation. They hadn't just come with a search warrant and take dismantled the house, so the local police wasn't completely under their control, probably just a few selected guys just like Oakwood's rescue services operation. Also the fact that they needed to do such a risky trick to bring Marianne here meant that their hold on the law firm was nearly inexistent, on any other case they would just have had Erik order her to go for the papers, no misdirection necessary.

And finally they were operating on a heavily compartmented operation; the left hand literally didn't know what the right hand was doing. It took them almost 36 hours for the clean crew to come to the house, and they had to use a ridiculously complex plan to do so. A compromise between security and operational capabilities always crippled the ability to respond to the unexpected. And she definitely was unexpected.

She left the sobbing woman and went straight to the office, she might not be able, or willing, to extract more useless information from her but to know which papers she had to get might give her an additional clue of who was involved on this.

She immediately saw the folder on the desk that wasn't there on her last visit, but her attention was on the unhooked phone. She had also being a little to careless on her approach making enough noise so that the person in the other side of the line knew someone was there.

"Marianne, are you done? I hope that you were able to find my agenda, or have an otherwise good excuse for letting me on hold. You know exactly just how much I hate that!"

"_Hang up that phone this instant! Those calls cost a fortune! … I'm sorry, but I need the phone and my daughter isn't allowed... what? Why, yes, I was about to call a client. Really? I believe he was born in August... ooooh!"_

She ignored the bizarre flashback and concentrated on the voice, she had hear it before, in the helicopter, the reason why she couldn't remember it was because it was sprouting a lot of nonsense! Then the person on the other side of the line was no other than Helen Morgendorffer's doppelganger.

She didn't have time to interrogate her, if she hadn't realized something was wrong before, she surely would do so by now, and then she would send backup spoiling for a fight that she was in no condition to give. But she could send a message.

"This is Melody Powers, I'm afraid that the henchman you send to take care of Miss Richmond was up to the task. I know what you did to the Morgendorffer family, and be sure that I will find you and your associates, and I'm going to make you pay."

"Daria!? Wa…" She didn't wait to listen to the answer before hanging.

She knew that the puppet master at the other side of the line would be calling a kill squad as soon as possible. She also knew that they had a less that perfect control of the local authorities. So the most logical way of throwing her opponent out of her game was to call the police.

"911, What's your emergency?"

"He killed Officer Winston, with a knife." She was whispering to the phone with a scared voice, trying to sound younger than she was.

"Wait, who killed whom?"

"The short guy on the ponytail, the one in a black hoodie, he killed him with the knife and is searching for me."

"Okay sweetie, just stat hidden and I…" She interrupted the woman, crying a little louder than before. "Smells weird, it's that a fire? … Please, don't hurt me, plea…" She ended the conversation by hitting the mouthpiece against the desk and then ended the call, leaving the handset unhooked to prevent any more incoming calls. The police would be able to track the call, so she needed to leave now.

On her way out she took the folder that Marianne had compiled and a cursory glance told her that those were indeed I.D. papers.

"Marianne, stand up and help Officer Winston towards the door please."

The confusion with the command was evident. "What?"

"Take Officer Winston to the door and get out. Now!" The last harsh word, the first one she had used was the one that got her on her feet and moving.

While both adults were walking towards the front door she went and picked her stuff, then she went to the kitchen, and hastily opened the gas on the stove, then while pouring half a bottle of cooking oil on the table, chairs and other flammables with one hand, with the other she fished a flare from one of her pockets. Then she just put both articles together in the microwave oven and set the timer to defrost.

Once it was done she ran towards the door that Marianne was in the process of opening. Having both hands occupied it was a harder maneuver than expected. She felt a little sorry of having cuffed her with the Winston guy, under the circumstances she would have preferred to get Marianne out and let Winston to burn, but now it was a little too late to find the key to the handcuffs, so she opened the door for her and helped both get out of the house.

Then she helped her to rest in the side of the police patrol and once she was sitting there she gave her the folder. "Marianne this are the papers you need, when you wake up tell the police to check the number that the double of Helen Morgendorffer gave you, they're not going to find anything but it will be a good enough clue for their investigation."

"Wake up?" Melody's answer was to use one of her tranq darts on the woman. Then without waiting to see the effects she ran flat out towards the street's corner burdened as she was by her backpack and computer.

'Sorry about that, but the dart only has half a load; you'll be right as rain in the morning. I hope.'

She could hear the sirens coming in the distance and a sound that probably was her improvised incendiary going off, and that meant that the neighbors a couple of blocks around would be getting out of their homes to see what the racket was about; but she had almost reached the second corner of the block so she suddenly slowed down, almost completely out of breath.

She then took off her sweater, revealing the orange t-shirt bellow, and forced herself to walk at an upbeat and not particularly suspicious pace while untying her hair despite the instincts that were screaming for her to keep running until she was out of the perimeter that the police ought to do once they arrived and saw the pandemonium she had left behind. But she lacked the stamina to cross even a quarter of the necessary distance.

She had a couple of advantages in any case, the first one was that the emotive description she gave to the 911 meant that they would be searching for a man dressed in dark clothes an a ponytail, and any witness that had managed to see her outside the house would corroborate the description. That had been the main reason she had been forced to knock out Marianne, so that her version of the facts wouldn't get out until the morning, the cop itself didn't matter, the concussion she gave him would last for a while, and his short term memory would be suspect anyway. She had also run off towards the east, but once she had been sure that any witness was out of sight she had gone west, and with a little additional luck the cops would search on that direction.

She wasn't expecting any good luck on that front, especially if any of the witnesses saw the backpack and computer case she was carrying and the police searched for those as well, but she wasn't about to make it easy for the authorities, and surrender without a fight; she had a lot more work to do.

It was then that a car sounded off its claxon before parking alongside her, starting her hard enough that she had her gun halfway out from her pocket.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Trent was driving his old and trusty Plymouth Satellite back home. The last minute gig at the Zon ended up being a bust, when Jesse had invited him he hadn't counted on sanitation threatening to close the place again; something about rats the size of cocker spaniels coming out of the girl's bathroom by hundreds. The owner took the bribe money out of their payment and the replacement for the fire alarms.

He yawned, 'Well, I can always go to practice in the house, maybe I can break my record of sixteen hours of practice.'

Then on his way back he saw a familiar figure. It was Jane's friend Daria, walking towards their house, and she looked bone tired.

Well, Janie had said that she expended the entire weekend camping with her family; that brought memories, bad ones, of the six months he lived on a tent outside his house, and of course the one day of hell cooped up with his extended family this weekend.

'She could use a lift'

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"Hey Daria, want a lift?"

The only reason why the disheveled and cute young man was alive was the fact that getting the gun from the pocket of her backpack was harder and slower than she expected. But then again if a policeman saw her gun they might bring more cops that she had bullets.

"_I'll let you off here. I have a problem dealing with authority."_

This was someone she knew, she was sure of that, her gut feeling on this was surprisingly strong. Plus she could hear sirens approaching, and no matter how good or bad this guy was, he probably was easier to subdue than the entire Lawndale Police Department.

"Yes please."

Once more she stepped into the car of someone who was a complete stranger, however in this occasion she couldn't treat the driver as a potential enemy, no matter the fact that doing so was the only reasonable choice.

"Janie tried to call you earlier this morning, something about misery loving company. Did you just arrive from your camping trip?"

"Yes, just arrived…" While she was trying to answer him without giving any information she recalled the message in the answering machine. Janie, Jane, had called to tell her about the trip with the… the Lane family, and if his sister was Jane that would make him…

"Trent, how was your family reunion?"

"We had to wake early, it was horrible." He looked worse than some Gulag victims she had rescued before, and she felt no need for ask for clarification on the matter. The felt in a short silence before Trent broke it.

"Sorry about the lack of ambience, the radio is busted again."

"No problem, the ambience is all right." The worst thing was that she actually believed that, and she felt uncomfortable feeling so comfortable with someone who might even be an enemy, so she started humming the first song that came to her mind.

_"You're an angel in black _

_You sure have a knack _

_For putting my heart on a shelf in the back _

_I'm waiting my turn _

_Oh, when will I learn? _

_My poor heart, you're giving it freezer burn. Yeah..."_

Despite that she would admit without any problems that it was a terrible choice it seemed that her chauffeur knew the song, and appreciate it.

"Hey, that's 'Icebox Woman' glad you remember it.

She felt herself blushing at his words, and that made no sense, she hadn't blushed at another's praise in years, not even when she was a schoolgirl she had blushed at something as simple as that. Hell, she usually didn't blush even when doing stuff that the Playboy's bunnies would be shy of trying.

Soon after that they arrived into an old house, with Trent opening the unlocked door and screaming out loud, "Jane, we're here!"

She was looking her surroundings, getting the lay of the ground when she saw the dark haired girl come down. Her heart skipped a beat when the image registered on her brain.

'It's imposible, it just can't be…'

"Hey Daria."

She couldn't hide the shock on her face or to stop the name that came out of her mouth so softly that not even Trent, who was at her side, could hear.

"Jacaranda"

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

This is the last chapter I had already written so from now on I'll be slower updating this particular story.

Sorry about that.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **


	11. Blue Jacaranda

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 09: Blue Jacaranda

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. Information regarding the Blue Jacaranda was extracted from Wikipedia.

This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The Blue Jacaranda, 'Jacaranda mimosifolia' more often known simply as the "Jacaranda", is a sub-tropical tree native to South America that has been widely planted elsewhere because of its beautiful and long-lasting blue flowers. Profuse flowering is regarded as magnificent by some and quite messy by others.

The Blue Jacaranda has been cultivated in almost every part of the world where there is no risk of frost. In the United States, it grows in parts of Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Florida, and has been reported to grow in southern Louisiana, the Mediterranean coast of Spain, in southern Portugal and southern Italy, Lusaka, the capital of Zambia also sees the growth of many Jacarandas. It is regarded as an invasive species in parts of South Africa and Queensland, Australia.

It is also the best known alias of an international terrorist wanted by both the West and the East for her relentless and often deadly attacks on the leadership of many satellite countries under their respective spheres of influence. Her mark is the addition of a flower, not exclusively a Blue Jacaranda, in front of a random work of art of the region she is operating, and said art isn't necessarily a piece of renown, in fact half the time she add those to otherwise unremarkable works.

The first known instance of one of her operations was the assassination of the Spanish Prime Minister, and successor of the Dictator Francisco, Franco Luis Carrero Blanco, with a huge underground bomb. The attack now is regarded at the first step to the return of democracy in the country. Later member of the Guardia Civil found that the woman who masterminded the whole operation had left a Blue Jacaranda in front of one of the many statues of the city; one commemorating the resistance against Napoleon invasion of the country. The attack itself was initially accredited to the ETA and incidentally increased tenfold the number of recruits of the European terrorists groups bankrolled by the Soviet Union.

The soviets of course were more than satisfied with the outcome, until a few months later when in a confusing incident, members of the Stasi went into an apartment in Berlin and killed their own Assistant director while he was having an affair with his latest mistress; said femme fatale expended an afternoon under the tender care of the secret police before banishing leaving only a red poppy under a graffiti in the Wall. The Jacaranda had exchanged apartments with a known dissident and then attracted the 'Butcher of the Wall' towards the place using her own body as bait. Once all the pieces were in place she had the man who had lost his entire family to the Stasi guns call the police and let their own brutal tactics finish the deal.

Personally Melody considered the Jacaranda the only International Freedom Fighter worthy of such title. Unlike many of the other guerrilla and terrorist that she had either helped or mercilessly killed during her career the Jacaranda's only goal was to make the life of the oppressed a little better by killing off the worst monsters that managed to worm their way into the darkest sides of governments.

The problem with her was that many of the countries she targeted were American client countries in danger of being swallowed by communism, with governments that had been put there to stop the Red's expansion with an Iron Fist and long ago had the CIA discovered that their tactics and agents were unable to deal with the unconventional tactics the Jacaranda used on her hits, from the subtle use of binary poisons in the middle of a propaganda dinner with hundreds of children to a suicide assault guns blazing in the middle of an army base to one memorable occasion when she had used herself as bait to an U.S. carrier alpha strike were half of the Junta was having a reunion. For that reason the assignment of killing or at least stopping her was given to the Farm and from there to Melody due to her successes in stopping the worst of her attacks from allowing the Reds a foothold.

Theorically Melody had standing orders to kill the Jacaranda on sight but as in with every other issue in the Cold War the ugly face of Realpolitik's meant that depending on whose puppet the country in question was they would often join forces to tackle on a particular foe. Geographically speaking finding her in South America and selected parts of the Middle East and Asia meant that it was their duty to try to kill each other, while on the other hand finding her in Africa and the Caribbean would have them as allies. There were also the memorable occasions when both of them were being gunned down by the same tin dictator or his replacement. Those times the betrayers seldom survived.

The Jacaranda was also the only ally that had never, ever betrayed her, not even her parent agency could claim to be guiltless on that, no matter how easy would have been for her to deal permanently with her, especially surrounded by a whole rebel army that wasn't all that keen of Americans. On the other hand Melody had erred her shots more than once whenever she was shooting her, and she had vowed to herself to never investigate the Jacaranda and her family, which she had casually mentioned in front of her a couple of occasions. It was nice to deal with an honorable enemy for once in her life and career.

And now here, in the middle of the United States of America, in one suburban neighborhood, a younger and untouched version of the Blue Jacaranda was standing in front of her.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"Jane, we're here!"

Jane could hear Trent screaming through her door, 'Umm, I guess that the gig was a bust after all, well is not as if he actually expected to be free tonight anyway… Did he say we?' Her curiosity picked she rushed towards the front door.

And surprisingly enough it wasn't another member of Mystik Spiral, she had been hoping for Jesse, but her best friend.

"Hey Daria."

Said girl didn't respond, in fact she just opened her eyes big as plates and muttered something illegible she didn't quite catch, but now that she was paying attention she could see a lot of differences with the spectacled girl, for starters she wasn't using her usual skirt, but some jeans of a different cut that the ones she took to Alternapaoosa, and while she was wearing her usual orange t-shirt the accompanying green jacket was missing. She was sweating as if she had just ended one of Morris practical exams and was just getting her breath back, there were cuts and bruises on her bare arms and even her face had a couple of scratches, she could see that while holding her backpack (and since when Daria had a blue backpack?) she was favoring her right side.

But while the clothes were unusual and the injuries could easily be from a mishap in the camping trip, after all Daria wasn't known for her physical progress, it was the look in her eyes the one that was worrying her. She looked lost and confused as if she didn't know where she was or something; if she could select one word to describe it would be shell-shocked.

"Daria, are you okay?"

The question seemed to get her out of her funk, since she blinked, and then it got weird. "Yes, yes I'm fine thank you."

The seemly innocuous answer had the opposite effect in Jane. Forget about weird clothes and weirder injuries; first of all Daria didn't answer with a sarcastic comment, something that she did automatically in most situations; and secondly the tone she used to say those words was tired but polite, with no trace of her usual monotone, even if she could detect an undertone of tension bellow it. And Daria without her sarcastic monotone just isn't Daria.

She shared a look with his brother who then make a move to leave; No matter how much she teased her brother about his sleeping habits and how disconnected he was from the world at large, he was the most emphatic and perceptive man she had ever known. And his look before quietly leaving the room told her that he too got the mixed signals that her friend was broadcasting and he too was worried. "I'll get you some water, do you want anything Janey?"

"No thanks Trent." The way Daria looked at him going to the kitchen was weird as well, she was certainly following him with her eyes, however she didn't quite turned her head, as if she couldn't decide between checking him or her out… And that was a weird image if she ever had one.

"Are you done checking out Trent, because I can sell you tickets if you want?" This time she did spurt a somewhat normal reaction, getting a mighty blush and directing her eyes upfront to her face. It was good to know that she could still tease her as normal, even in her current condition.

She decided to cut the ice with the most obvious topic on her head. "So I'm guessing by how you look that camping with the family wasn't a walk in the park?"

Whatever reaction she expected wasn't the one she got, for a single second the face of her friend showed repressed anger… No, it wasn't anger, but barely suppressed fury of the kind that she had never seen in her life before. It was there a second, and the next it was gone, replaced with a neutral face and a monotone of a different nature that the one her friend commonly used. 'What the hell happened?' She thought concerned, Daria's emotional armor was as thick as a battleship's and with a lot more bite; for something, anything to go through that, it must have been hellish.

"It wasn't the most pleasant of weekends and let's let it like that. And how was your family reunion, I heard the message on the answering machine, and I'm curious about you cheating death once more."

"Well, not death, but maybe my sanity and whatever self esteem that I have left after school. The sad thing is that I'm not joking, this time I started the family meeting in the flight to Nowhereville with the left foot thanks to Trent's uncanny ability to say the wrong thing in the worst possible moment…

"Hey Daria, here's the water. By the way why where you walking towards here so late? You know this 'hood isn't exactly safe at this hour."

'Good one Trent, I don't know if all the noise you call music threw up all the subtlety out of you'

Daria hesitated for a moment before answering. "I wanted to get out of the house…" Jane always had one finely tuned bullshit detector, the best in Lawndale High until Daria trumped her, for everyone except boys, and the next words from her friend's mouth activated it. "…so I told my parents that I was coming here to sleep and that I already asked for your permission. I can go to a hotel afterwards if you want."

"No, don't worry; you can sleep in Penny's room."

"Thank you." The weirdest part of her thanks was the slight smile on her face, which looked nothing like the Mona Lisa one she always used when something went her way. Maybe that was throwing up her BS detector; she had never seen Daria act so naturally or unnaturally as it was in her case, so she wasn't able to get a good reading out of her.

So she continued telling her about the disastrous reunion of the Lanes, hoping to get something, anything, out of her friend and whatever happened in the weekend to make her act like that.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody couldn't describe with words the sheer shock of seeing the black haired girl in front of her.

She was a dead ringer for the Blue Jacaranda, or at least a dead ringer for a fifteen years younger Blue Jacaranda, even if she was lacked the acid burn in her left eye and all the related affections, from the hairdo covering the horrible scars to how she always faced people slightly to the right to cover her blind spot.

However as much as this girl favored physically the Jacaranda, her mannerism were a different matter; her body language was too open in a physical way, getting both within arm's reach and yet too far for a hand to hand strike of her own and emotionally she was even more open if it was possible, first showing happiness for seeing her (and Melody provoked many reactions in people, from fear to lust, but carefree happiness was never one of them) and then a scant second later honest worry.

And that worry was the most dangerous feeling the girl could have, Melody could see that she saw right through her, admittedly feeble, reassurances and made a signal to his male counterpart.

Maybe the Jacaranda was a control subject in the mind scrubbing experiment that they did on her mind, and the signal was for the young man, Trent, to call the cavalry while they keep her distracted?

'No, that makes no sense at all; the Jacaranda doesn't play nice with shadowy organizations.' She followed him leave, ostensibly for a glass of water, while keeping an eye for the far more dangerous terrorist. Regrettably she was too close to get her gun and kill them both, and with her sloppy physical skills she might not be able to take the girl down before his supposed brother came to help.

"Are you done checking out Trent, because I can sell you tickets if you want?" The nature of the question caught her unaware; once more she cursed the hormones that came with this body. Jacaranda would be crazy to ally herself with any organization, much less for something as redoing her teens.

As far as she knew, the Jacaranda had never acted against the United States of America; yes, she had spoiled more than one attempt to place their own men in critical third world countries, but she did respect the values the country was founded. That was the reason why she had cooperated in stopping direct threads to the government in the past.

Also she had stubbornly refused to participate with any single organization of the government, of any government; she knew that the insurgency department of the CIA would give her an honorary citizenship and a vice director post if she deflected to the west. She had refused, just as she had refused her own country behind the Iron Wall.

But then the next question erased all thoughts of hormones and cute backsides, even as she detected the sliver of worry deep within her interrogator voice. How could she ask so nonchalantly about a good American family who was destroyed beyond any possible recovery? The simple thought of making light of their situation let her wanting to go for her hidden knife and bury it deep within the other girl.

She took a second to recover her composure, it wasn't the girls fault to ignore the true circumstances of the trip, and Jacaranda would never made light of such a tragedy. Then after she was sure she would not messily kill her host she weaved an appropriate vague answer followed by an evasion. For a moment she believed it worked and that her host was going to concentrate on giving her information instead of extracting it, but Trent came back with the water and another trickier question.

She hesitated for a moment, thinking that maybe her cover was shot and that she would need to shoot them in return, and then without really thinking about it she weaved her lie. "I wanted to get out of the house so I told my parents that I was coming here to sleep and that I already asked for your permission. I can go to a hotel afterwards if you want." It was ill thought, with more holes than the last boat she rode from Hanoi, and yet while the girl seemed doubtful she offered the room of someone called Penny.

Under the situation, with cops hot on her heels and nowhere to go the safely that the house represented was a godsend. She has truly thankful for the safe haven; despite the fact that she might have to kill both of the inhabitants. But if anything she could see how the blue eyes of her host become a little more suspicious when she thanked her.

No, not suspicious… worried.

'She is worried about me?' The worry in her eyes drove away any homicidal thoughts from her mind. There was still a mystery here, but maybe the Lanes weren't the enemy. At least for now…

Deciding to show at least a modicum of trust she took the glass offered by Trent and let the water touch her lips without actually drinking any of it. It was an old trick to detect any poisonous beverages without risking too much of a dose. She looked their reactions towards the technique; even half trained agents would know when someone was doing it if they pay attention. She relaxed a little when she didn't felt any suspicious numbing of her mouth and the subsequent lack of reaction; they were either innocent, too green to notice, or simply had ready a damn good poison and waiting for the effect to occur.

Then the black haired girl decided to continue her narrative, describing just how long they had to walk before arriving to the house where the reunion was hosted after being left behind by their Aunt Bernice, of the cold reception and the annoying questions, not forgetting the way Uncle Max insulted Trent. While Melody was paying attention to the words, she was not particularly interested in the family reunion other than to see if she could get any clue about the situation she had gotten herself into.

"…The only one who can call him a bum is me; and maybe you if you feel like it." She was definitely more appalled for Trent's sake than for her own. Then Trent came back once more to the living room carrying unopened poptarts and scraps of old pizza. Feeling bold after surviving the water, dirty glass included, and being in dire need of energy after the knifefight (or a gunfight from the cop's perspective) and subsequent escape she devoured the food under the astonished eyes of the Lanes.

"Whoa…"

"Hungry much Daria?"

"Try surviving the last few days off the land and ask me again." She snapped with a little more of an edge than she intended, but curiously they both relaxed at the answer.

"Well, as I was saying then our loving relatives shoved all of us into the living room with a blanket for every five of us. I guess that they thought that our body heat and nasty vocabulary would be more than enough to keep us warm in the night. And after one hellish night of being confused for a pillow by disturbing relatives they decided that the morning activities would start at seven o'clock with an arousing game of crocket. At this point Trent and I decided to blow the joint lest we take those crocket hammers and nailed someone with them."

Somehow, despite hearing about their misadventures Melody didn't feel too much sympathy for the siblings. 'Probably because I slept yesterday under the bed of a flea ridden motel while a sedated pedophile comfortably sleeping on the bed. And lest not forget that I woke up even earlier and for activities less fulfilling than crocket, Like cleaning fingerprints and staging a successful deflowering for the pervert.'

"Poor suffering souls." Once more the quip came out of her mouth without her being able to stop it. And once more she saw how they relaxed more after hearing those words.

"Now that I have faced the extended Lane Clan without Winter or Summer to take most of the flak I can understand better why Penny ran all the way to Latin America."

"She ran all the way to the south of the continent just because of a family meeting?" Melody asked, now being far more interested in the conversation than before.

"Well the official excuse Penny gave to our parents was that she wants to fight for the oppressed. How she plans to do that selling hand-crafted tin picture frames in Mexico I don't know. Wait, didn't that business in Mexico fell flat? I think that now she's in Nicaragua.

Now the situation with the sister made a lot more of sense to Agent Powers that it would do to an American teenager ignorant of the rest of the world. Mexico had recently clean house of the usual rabble of red communist scum in a messy but successful operation that the media had named the Massacre of Tlatelolco. She could see someone such as the Blue Jacaranda wanting to see if a counter hit was possible, but the Mexican government is by far the most stable democracy in the continent; The current reigning party in the country would place a new president every six years by 'popular' vote and having forbidden the reelection of any member of the executive branch in their constitution for over fifty years therefore preventing any one power hungry fool from taking all power for himself, in any case when their term was over the only way to avoid being messily assassinated was to lend his support to the next candidate. While there were the occasional internal plays for power, the whole system was foolproof and tested for decades; to give legitimacy to the government there were three or four more parties with different approaches and competing between them for small and irrelevant counties and states, but ultimately too divided to do any meaningful ruckus. The Republican Party might learn a thing or two of such a smooth operation.

If was easy to imagine the frustration that Jacaranda might have felt when discovering that instead of going there to fight a Medusa, she found a full size Hydra, and if she decapitated the monster the only thing she would accomplish would be to give to the party a ready make martyr. On the other hand the Sandinistas were in dire need of support to overthrow Somoza, the brutal dictator of the country, and the madness that was the war in Nicaragua would be easily stopped with an artillery shell shot from one of the artillery batteries defending the capital, or maybe a strategically cooked meal with ingredients he's allergic. Part of the Jacaranda's charm is the diversity of her methods after all.

But even if that was true there were a lot of unanswered questions in the air. Out of respect she would never search for the Blue's Jacaranda's family, and even if she did the last part that she would search would be in a low income house in a small but fairly prosperous city in the United States. Maybe it was…

The sudden snapping of fingers in front of her brought her musings to a full stop.

"Hey Daria, are you okay. You zoned out on me."

"Yes just a bit tired."

"A bit tired? You look as if a mild breeze might knock you out. Come on, I'll take you to Penny's room. Trent, could you help with her stuff?"

"No! I mean, I'll carry it. There's no need to bother you even more than I have." Melody really didn't want them to see the gun in the backpack.

"Whatever rocks your boat." Jane answered with a puzzled expression.

She was then guided to a room in the second floor, once she saw the bed she started to undress to her underwear to get to the bed.

"Whoa." She could hear the voice of Trent behind her, followed by both siblings leaving the room in a hurry. "Neither has lived in barracks before." Melody giggled a little before taking her gun out of the backpack and hiding it under the pillow. After that there was only darkness.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"What the hell is wrong with Daria?"

Jane and Trent were once more downstairs after their hasty retreat from Penny's room, where their friend was currently sleeping. And both of them were still reeling from the shock.

"She wasn't acting normal, isn't it?" Trent asked, he was a good judge of character, and right now all of his instincts were screaming for him to go and hide; something particularly strange when dealing with his little sister's small and sarcastic friend.

"Not acting normal? She wasn't acting like herself at all. I mean, when has she been shy about anything?" Trent was about to answer when Jane interrupted him. "Other than talking with you; and since the Alternapaoosa, fiasco she has improved there as well. But today she was hesitant, she almost didn't snark and she was trying to be tactful in occasions. Daria is many things, but tactful is not one of them Trent. And about that striptease she just did? Simply put Daria is a total prude, she would never undress in front of me, much less in front of you."

"And there was this vibe she was sending…" Trent's full body shiver completed the image far better than anything he could say.

"Yeah, I saw it too, or at least I think I did. I swear, did she aim to beat me at the misery weekend game? Because it looks as if she succeeded beyond my wildest nightmares." Jane rubbed her eyes; "I guest that I'll ask tomorrow before school, when she's rested and not as recalcitrant as today."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

A.N. Some of you with knowledge of history will note that many of the events described here are quite real, but that the chronology doesn't make any sense. That is on purpose; Daria created Melody Powers to be a female James Bond, and just as Bond she is atemporal, being part of relevant points of the Cold War. In Daria's mind that will become a blind spot for the many inconsistencies in her biography, especially the fact that she should be a septuagenarian agent forcefully retired from active duty for at least a decade or two.


	12. Blue Blood

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 10: Blue Blood

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Consuelo 'Connie' Avila Camacho and Elizabeth 'Liz' Reichs (no relation to Sergeant Reich, thank god!) were two of the more colorful female officers of the Lawndale Police Department. For starters everyone was surprised to learn that Connie was the tall blonde of the team, and that the name was not from the south of the border but originating from Spain after her great grandfathers had to run from the Civil War, while Liz, was simply short and tanned enough for someone with preconceptions to believe her to be Mexican, Paraguayan or some other banana country other than a 100% American. The second reason they were so infamous was due to their low threshold for idiots, and the speed they could get the pepper spray whenever one of those idiots talked to them.

The reason they were doing the night shift was that just last week a duo of lecherous creeps had insinuated to them in the mart. They had responded as usual, getting their batons out and giving one last warning. It should be keep on record than when a couple of angry female officers from the Janet Barch school of hard knocks ask you to get lost of get hit, the correct answer is neither 'You can hit me as much as you want' nor 'Grrr… Feisty.'

The only reasons they were still in the force were that in both Charles Ruttheimer Junior and Charles Ruttheimer the Third actually enjoyed the following beating and therefore they didn't pressed for charges (when they learned about that little fact both girls had to be discreetly restrained from using their guns of the pair of masochistic fools by a veteran cop), and that due to Chief Jackson's Racial Equanimity Policy it was not in his best interest to kick out two female cops that either have a name that sounds like a Mexican, or have a face that kind of looks like one; therefore they had been banished to the night shift in the worst part of the city.

They were just slightly late to their patrol area when dispatch sent the one alert than any cop truly dreads. "Alert to all units, we got a possible home invasion and arson at 1111 Glen Oaks Lane, possible officer down." Connie was the first to respond while Liz turned the siren on and hit the gas. "Here unit 777 responding, were seven blocks away. Details?"

"Unit 777 you're closer." The call came just in the middle of the station's shift change; in theory right now they were twice the amount of cops available, in practice two thirds of said cops were either filling their paperwork for the day or were in the ready room waiting for their specific assignments.

The dispatcher continued, "911 call from unidentified female minor, she reported that a short guy with a ponytail and black hoodie knifed an officer Winston. She reported fire before the call was interrupted. Address was automatically located."

Connie and Liz exchanged looks, they didn't know everyone in the station and Winston was a common enough name, but the use of names made slimmer the chance that it was a prank call. Right now the guys at the station were probably trying to contact every Winston in the night shift.

They arrived to the street in short order, and it wasn't hard to find where the correct address was. The bunch of gawkers and the smoke coming out of one of the house's windows were enough indication. More importantly was the patrol car in front of the house and the man frantically waving his hands. Parking alongside the other patrol they got out, guns in their hands; what they saw was surprising to say the least.

A couple of neighbors were attending two fallen bodies; one belonging to a young blonde and another to Frank Winston, one of the old guard veterans who survived Chief Jackson's purges. He was in bad shape, with a nasty gash on his chest, an arm bended in an unnatural way, and his eyes were rolling on his head. At least both of them were alive. More importantly, his holster was empty.

"Thank god officers. They were like this when we heard the racket." The man who was talking was also holding a sweater on the wound of Frank's chest.

Remembering that the call mentioned Liz asked, "Do girls live in that house?"

"Yes, Quinn and I think Darla too."

Connie was already getting the tiny fire extinguisher from the car, and as soon as they heard the answer both women ran to the front door.

"Frank's gun missing," said Liz as they armed themselves; she using her Berretta with both hands, while Connie held her own in the left while carrying the red tube with the right. Once they arrived they just needed a slight nod before opening the door and entering -guns first- to the house.

Then they went straight to the source of the fire in case someone was there and they needed to get them out before they burn. The kitchen itself was surprisingly in good repair, with only a small fire in the counter where a microwave had apparently blown up, some burning drapes, and the flames of the oven and stove. It was sheer luck that while Melody Powers was an accomplished demolition expert with a flare for the dramatic Daria Morgendorffer definitely wasn't, and when she created her improvised Fuel Air Bomb she didn't take into account many of the relevant variables, like size of the room, or the exact timing of her devise. The Fire Marshall would later determinate that the gas hadn't had enough time to fill the kitchen due to the open design of the room and when the IED on the Microwave exploded the fire flash from the gas wasn't enough to do more than break a couple of windows without doing much more damage.

While Liz was covering her, Connie doused the flames with the extinguisher before manipulating the knobs to cut off the gas. The last thing they wanted was to search for the girl with a fire on their backs. Then they started searching the rest of the house; anyone who had casually met the young cops would have thought that the search would be fast and desperate. Instead they carefully and methodically searched each room, covering each other at every step. They might have been scratching a pass on their civic courses at the police academy, but compensated by getting top marks in tactics, if not for the regulations and their relative lack of experience they would have already been scouted for one of the two tactical assault teams of the city.

"Clear." Connie quietly told her partner. They had searched the entire house from top to bottom, and they found nothing other than signs of struggle in the top of the stairs and some blood in the bottom. But nothing on either the suspect or the girl who made the call in the first place. Then they decided to go outside and meet the rest of the cavalry that was coming, they all would have a long night ahead of them.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"_Have you ever seen __Sick, Sad World__?"_

" _No."_

" _How about __Animal Maulings__ on home video?"_

"_Yeah, I'd love to have hair like that woman who was molested by the kangaroo."_

"_Really? She looks so every day."_

"_I mean, after she was molested."_

"_Ohhhh."_

"_Make sure you get, like, the big clods of dirt and stuff in it."_

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

_As it was the shot had passed a hairsbreadth from her neck, so close than her clothes were stained with cordite and only the adrenalin going through her veins prevented her from stopping in shock. Using the impetus she had gathered in her charge she didn't allow him the chance to adjust his aim for a second shot before she was upon him, thrusting with the knife in her right hand exactly where his heart was._

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"_Well, they're finally asleep. Think you can fix that?"_

" _Think I can fix it?"_

"_Tonight, on Sick, Sad World, a prime-time special about people just like you, only more pathetic."_

"_Just in time."_

" _I guess you're not going to work on your paper."_

"_I'll have to get an extension. Right now, I'm having trouble remembering my own name."_

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

_Her voice was calm, eerie calm, when she answered her. "I see… You know, I find hard to believe that Helen Morgendorffer would call you. The last time I saw her she was completely out of her mind, tortured and raped until every word out of her mouth was nothing but gibberish. That kind of damage cannot be healed in a year of therapy, much less in a day. Her husband and daughter were no better, and I consider it a miracle that the youngest, Quinn, wasn't raped as well by those sadistic animals."_

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody waked up from her memory fueled nightmare.

Her hands were shaking

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"You weren't in duty and the situation is simple enough."

Jeff Burns resisted the impulse to punch the idiot after that answer. "One officer knifed, contused and with his service piece missing; an unidentified woman cuffed to him, against regulations I might add, and narcotized with something the medics at Lawndale Charity think is more than capable of knocking down a bear; a girl making a distress call and then disappearing in thin air in circumstances that at best could be considered as mysterious and at worst suspicious... And you didn't call the captain of the Major Crimes Unit nor other reinforcements because the situation is simple?

"Overtime has been categorically prohibited by Chief Jackson. I don't have the authority to recall any off duty officer, especially for a simple home invasion gone wrong. " The night shift sergeant said with a bored voice, at odds with the seriousness of the matter at hand.

"And you didn't call Jackson either." It wasn't a question.

"He said that he wasn't to be called in the middle of the night unless someone important died. No one's dead so I didn't see a reason to wake him up."

Jeff gawked at the idiotic cop in front f him. The Night Shift never had been the most glamorous or sought after posting in any police department, but it was always well staffed for obvious reasons. Only that for Chief Jackson those reasons weren't so obvious, so he had dumped there only the newest rookies and the worst cases that he couldn't legally fire so that he would not have to deal with them. It was sheer luck that the first responders to yesterday incident were excellent, if somewhat aggressive and violent, cops instead of untrained rookies.

"Well, then I have the authority to do so; so wake him up and call the troops right now!" Instead of moving his ass sergeant Barney calmly responded, "Night Shift ends at seven, until then you're not officially in duty so you don't have the authority for authorizing overtime."

And to ensure that no one would bother him with minor things he promoted Barney St. Ives, the dullest, most obnoxious, no brain idiot he had ever seen dressed in blue, from his position in the evidence locker to the sergeant in charge of the night shift. He was obstructive and stubborn to the N degree, lacking even the most basic form of critical thinking or common sense. And he wasn't even a by the book cop; no, a by the book cop would be too much of a hassle for Jackson to deal with, especially in circumstances were the book says to wake half the city up such as this one, instead he make him understand that his current bonanza came from Jackson and that his word is gospel as far as he's concerned.

"Then let me ask you something. What do you think Chief Jackson is going to think when he arrives and find out that a cop killer is on the loose in a posh neighborhood with a service gun he could use at any moment on accredited voters? Doing something so flashy should be quite newsworthy, don't you think? I can tell you something about that: he's not taking the fall for this, and do you want to be in the spotlight when he searches for someone else to do it for him?

"Captain Burns, thank you for your cooperation, I gladly accept any help you can voluntarily provide from your own personal time." He said, as expected putting himself in a position where he could either bask in the glory or throw him to the lions, just as Jackson has done with the original captain in charge of the Night Shift.

Captain Jeff 'Burnout' Burns allowed himself a small smile as he lighted one cheap and smelly cigar, 'Typical, the only real skill Jackson teaches to all cops under his command, either veterans, rookies or screw ups like Barney, is how to properly cover your ass behind someone else. And in this the S.O.B. always teaches by example.'

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

For a moment Daria felt disoriented. Where was she?

She concentrated for a second taking her surroundings, the room seemed old and a little dilapidated, with that particular smell that meant that the room was seldom opened. And behind that smell there was one far more familiar, one of old acrylic paint and burned up clay.

'Did I fall asleep on Jane's?' She thought with a grimace, concentrating on the previous day.

Then the reality of yesterdays came crashing down on Melody's mind. Waking up in the motel under that pervert (thankfully with a bed between them), and then the following shopping trip. The modest investigation she performed on her own assumed identity that lead her to the Morgendorffer house.

And then dealing with the corrupt cop and his hostage that had interrupted the search and leaved her in a most vulnerable position. Luckily for her, surprise had been on her side and she had managed to get the, otherwise skilled, thug into an ambush that let him with a massive contusion and her with a gun, a traumatized hostage and probably a warrant for her arrest. So she had picked up the few scraps she had gathered, torched the place top make it a little bit harder for her enemies and then ran before the cavalry arrived.

And now she had stumbled into the house and family of the Jacaranda, and the Jacaranda's own baby sister had welcomed her with open arms, feeding her and letting her sleep in her sister's (Melody's closest thing to a friend) room.

'I know that the Jacaranda have access to millions of dollars and other less traceable goods in different bank accounts and security boxes and I bet that buried in one beach or another, so why she allows her family to live in this dump?' Then a more than reasonable answer came to mind. '…because someone could follow the money trail, no matter how well hidden to them. Or for that matter they could follow me even easier.'

"I'm such a fool…"

Yesterday she had been tired enough to completely miss the implications in accepting shelter from the Lane family. But now that she had eight solid hours of sleep she could see the huge mistake that coming here was. Melody had to leave the house before the cops or her enemies had the slightest chance of finding her here.

She took the gun she had stuffed under the pillow and, after checking the safety was on, put it on her backpack. She was about to put on the same clothes she had shed without conscious thought yesterday before falling as a log, before realizing that the police had enough time to discover her little Matrioska trick with her clothing. It was also quite possible that all local patrols had a full description of her by now.

She needed a new disguise.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"…I'm going to sue those useless fat cats until they have to sell their pistols in pieces just to eat, and then I'm suing them again until they have to sell themselves to a one eyed pimp. Damn fuzz!"

Detective Eddie Brock stood there letting the woman rant to the four winds; god knew he wanted to join her. The levels of cooperation between the LPD and the OPD reached a new low yesterday. When Miss Morgendorffer had called the officer on shift in the hospital and told him what had happened he had been recalled to get the statement and sent the cavalry before the girl could get to far from her home. The answer from the LPD had been to hang them up before they could even tell about what the night call was about.

They had tried at least thrice more before giving up.

The next movement of the very angry lawyer was when she called her boss Erik, the man that had penetrated Lawndale's finest institutional obfuscation, but…

"…And then I'm going to teach Erik that if he forced me to give my home phone number so that he might call me at midnight for one of his idiotic questions that a junior student at Law school could answer his first day then he could return the favor and at least keep his cell on in case of emergencies…"

The other local number they had tried belonged to the secretary's, but when they tried that one after two hours of frustration with the LPD and Erik no one had answered. They were still trying but for all intents and purposes the phone line was a dead end.

At least Miss Morgendorffer was cursing for both of them. "Then I'm going to bring our full tribe to war! And I swear we're having his scalp decorating our tents."

'Uhh, what was the last part?'

"Sorry, what did you say?" He had been more or less tuning out her angry rant but the last part sounded a little weirder than the norm.

"That I'm going to kill your Lawndale counterparts as soon as I get out of the hospital, but only after I left them begging for food in the streets."

"Okay…"

Right now they had run out of options to let Lawndale police what was going on; in the morning he would go to Lawndale's police and demand some answers, because if he was correctly reading the whole situation, for Daria to make the call from that particular phone she must have gone through a cop and a bystander to do so.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody had found an old, judging from the smell at least ten years, white t-shirt and a discolored red running shorts, that along some garish sunglasses big enough to wear over her own large glasses were the extent of the available props for her disguise but that wasn't going to be nearly enough to conceal her from an organized manhunt.

She had searched the bathroom for any color of hair dye, but it seemed that the Jacaranda hadn't taught her family the essential supplies needed in the house of an international spy. She was half tempted to wake up Jane, or possibly Trent, and ask them if they had a proper dye or maybe a wig she could use to hide her identity, but that would raise too many questions, and she wished to respect Jacaranda's wishes, at least concerning her family's innocence, both legal and moral.

That only left one option.

After silently cursing the ice cold water emanating from the shower, apparently the Lane family was the kind of family that saved money by turning off the heater at night, she carefully washed her hair before doing the same with the rest of her body. Then once she was done she went to the mirror and carefully taking a pair of scissors she started cutting her long hair, thanks to the shower and a liberal amount of shampoo far more manageable and therefore easy to cut, at least in the physical sense, emotionally she was unexplainable feeling as if she was cutting a leg instead.

Examining her now much shorter hair she suddenly felt a pang of regret, the hair was the only thing in her appearance that had been cared for, probably an integral part of the real Daria Morgendorffer that would be lost now. But then again, if she didn't avoid the people looking for her, then both Daria and Melody would become a note in a police report, and probably by that point communism would set in the States and there would be enough bodies that mass graves would be the norm.

Getting dressed and readjusting her backpack so that she could fit the laptop she had acquired from Quinn Morgendorffer's room as well as most of her clothes, her orange t-shirt had to stay, tidied the room she made her bed.

Before she crossed the threshold she left a fifty dollars bill in the table of the living room to pay for the lodgings and the inconveniences the family was going to have in the next few days, hoping beyond hope that their family tree remain out of sight when the heat came to this place.

With a sight she ran away from her latest safe haven, probably to never return.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"And then we burst in as soon as we could but didn't find anyone inside." Jeff was in front of the Morgendorffer house, interviewing Liz and Connie about their impressions of the incident; almost ten hours had passed since and by now rushing in guns blazing was a waste of time; the suspect probably had left long ago.

And why wouldn't he, there had been no roadblocks isolating the zone, neither did the cops organized a methodical combing of the area other than a somewhat disjointed search inside the patrol cars. A chopper with a searchlight had been out of the question without Jackson's signature; budget cuts and all that jazz.

"So you left Officer Winston outside while you got inside without backup?" They looked a little ashamed for a second before rallying up. "They told us that girls were living inside there Boss, no time to wait for anyone."

"Don't worry you took the right choice there." Night Shift's response times were some of the worst he had ever seen in his career, the Café Lawndale incidents that make into the news for a while were just an example, first with someone stealing ALL the computers from the previous cybercafé despite the alarms blazing out for over an hour, then was that mob of high school children that somehow made it undetected halfway to town's square before dispersing for a lack of embassies to burn, and finally a second burglar (or maybe the first one, after all he's still at large) stealing a goddamned industrial sized coffee maker with the alarm going off for hours before any response.

"Boss, do you really think this is a burglary gone wrong?" The confusion in her voice was evident, it didn't look like a burglary, but then again it didn't look like any other out of the mill crime he had ever seen.

Sergeant St. Ives has been treating this as it was a simple home invasion gone bad with two perps, a woman that Frank had arrested and the other unknown accomplice being caught in the act by one of the daughters that lived in the house, and then she had called Frank's patrol car so he had gone inside and arrested and cuffed the woman to himself leaving himself open to his accomplice, a guy dressed in black who knifed him and stole his gun, leaving him for dead alongside his partner before trying to burn them alive. Then, since the woman's car was parked in the entrance, he ran to freedom while Frank heroically dragged himself out of the fire.

The problem was that the theory while making sense at first glance (for someone who didn't see too many chapters of 'The Law and Order') had more holes in it than a paper target after the local shooting championship. "No, I don't think so. What do the witnesses say about this whole mess?"

Following the chronology of the incident, Frank Wilson was definitely off duty and way out of his patrol area and there were no records indicating just why he was here. And Frank was a true by the book cop; an incident, any incident at all, no matter the urgency he would have radioed first and then acted; charging like a bull was not part of his M.O.

"Umm, according to the usual gawkers, busybodies and voyeurs Frank came here more or less at half pass six, lights off, talked with blondie and then went into the house. By that point most of the voyeurs lost interest until the fireworks later."

Connie then added, "No heroic and foolish actions without backup as Barney was telling us in the radio. Then again, having that pussy say something means that the opposite holds true." Barney's theory implied going to inside the house, running towards the sound of gunfire or some similar nonsense. Then again, Barney was trying to play sofa detective without even leaving his office.

The same blonde was found later cuffed to Frank, something that only an amateur would take as an arrest. No cop would ever cuff himself to a criminal, it restricted the policeman's mobility too much and gave the criminal unlimited access to a limp and with some bad luck to a serviceman belt; and even a small woman like that would be enough to get the cop pinned simply by refusing to walk and sit down in the floor, not to mention a whole lot of martial arts moves.

And there was the woman herself, Marianne Richmond. According to Liz and Connie her clothes were in tatters after using part of the fabric for trying to stop Franks blood, hardly the attitude of a prisoner towards her capturer. While not having any injuries herself, other than the marks of the cuffs in her wrists, she had been injected with a powerful sedative; the lab was already running analysis on the blood.

She worked for Helen Morgendorffer, the house owner, a piece of information they got from her husband, who had found out about his wife being on the ER not by the police but by calling to every hospital in town after she had run late from an errant for her workaholic boss. And until he called the hospital to ask for the status of the woman was that he found that no one left the husband into his wife's room or had asked any questions to him at all.

"Okay, let's see what's inside." He said before inspecting the house's interior.

There had been an old suitcase full of clothes near the door, which made some sort of sense since the Morgendorffers were on a camping trip so they probably decided those were too many clothes for a single weekend, but from there on things stopped having any kind of sense.

The fire in the kitchen was simply bizarre. For what the Fire Marshall told him on the way, someone used the microwave, cooking oil and a high caliber emergency flare, as some sort of timed detonator. The idea itself was devious, even if the execution was so sloppy; to torch the house it would have been easier just to spread the oil through the kitchen and then lit a match.

Then there were the stairs were the damage and blood suggested that the fight between Frank and the suspect took place, it seemed that it started upstairs where he managed one shot before being knifed and thrown out of the stairs. The problem with that scenario was that from that particular place there wasn't a place to hide, even for a couple of seconds, if Frank was coming up then he would have seen the guy coming from the bathroom, and he wouldn't have missed someone if he was coming back from one of the rooms, and at that distance it was virtually impossible to miss anyway, much less when the other guy needed to be within arm's reach.

The rest of that confrontation was easier to guess, as long as you ignored the sergeant's theory of course, the suspect must have come down the stairs took the gun and subdued Miss Richmond chaining her to the cop while she administer first aid.

But the most puzzling thing at all was the lack of other struggle in the rest of the house. No signs of the girl who made the 911 call, not even near any of the phones where they hear the arrival of the bastard…

"Unless there wasn't other guy..."

The blond cop went to his car almost at a run, surprising the female officers that were with him. Swiftly he opened the vehicle and took the radio.

"This is Officer Burns to units detailed in the search of the suspect of the Glenn Oaks incident. Report any sights of a young female going alone around the time of the crime. She was probably leaving the area while the rest of the people went to look at the fire. Over."

"Boss?"

"Think about it, if you had just taken down a cop and had his car then what would you do? His absence will be felt sooner than later, and the manhunt will be intense. So you need something to take the heat out long enough to get out, so you make a 911 call giving a tearful performance of a break and entering, giving the operator a vague description of a heartless suspect, an stereotypical male suspect at that, then you prepare a fast and dirty distraction, like a fire on a timer and while the 'usual gawkers' go and see the fire and the two bodies in a police car our female suspect gets out without people taking note."

"Hija de …" Connie said before shutting up out of respect (or fear) for her superior.

"…puta?" He demonstrated his working knowledge of Spanish with a smile before continuing. "Yeah, but it's the only thing that even comes close to fitting with our evidence. And even then I still have too many questions; but those I'll ask after we get this bitch. Right now whoever she is has probably gone to ground already, but maybe we can get a good description, I need you to interview again the neighbors, this time asking for any sights of a female; someone young enough for fooling us with the voice."

"On it."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

It was that point in the morning when it's dawning, when the first rays of sun illuminates the streets just enough to see the road, and no much more. The girl running in the street was unremarkable in every way, with her faded red shorts and white shirt. It was already filled with sweat common from exercise. Maybe the only thing out of place was the large backpack, and the uncomfortable glasses.

Therefore when the patrol matched her pace it was quite normal the way in she was started and did that little jump.

"Sorry," said the cop from inside the squad car. He was young, almost painfully so for his given job, and the obvious Asian heritage did nothing to make him look any older. "didn't mean to scare you."

The girl was puffing and her answer came in short breaths, all while trying to keep the same speed. "No prob, just too focused in not dying here."

"Reminds me police academy six months ago, felt like hell at the begging, but at the end… still felt like hell. Not used to exercise?"

"Trying to get in shape, from here I get to the gym and then to school." She said while gesturing to her backpack.

"Want me to follow you to the gym? Right now is scary 'round here."

"Scary? I know is a little early, but this is a boring neighborhood."

"Yeah, but there was a home invasion in Glenn Oaks up north, and people were hurt so…"

"Glenn Oaks? I have a friend living there. No way…"

"Yes way. A cop, someone from the evening shift, was hurt." The discomfort in the cop's face was evident.

"Man, that's heavy. But don't worry sir, my gym is a couple blocks down, and I'll be fine." Then boy seemed to think about it for a second then came to his decision. "Okay, be careful, and try to jog with a friend more often, maybe the one from Oaks? safety in numbers and all that stuff."

"You too; be careful." With that parting comment the police vehicle once more accelerated to a speed more appropriate for a car than a turtle, leaving the girl behind.

"Be careful officer. You never know when you are going to stumble with someone meaner than you." Melody patted the concealed gun in her hip, glad that she wasn't going to be forced to kill the well intentioned rookie on her way.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Sorry for the long delay. Writer's block is always a nuisance.


	13. I Hate Mondays…

Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 11: I Hate Mondays…

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Jane's Monday morning started just as every other morning, with plenty of complains and arguments with herself about the merits of waking up, and as always cutting it a little short regarding school. She was about to go for breakfast and then win the bath for herself for the Nth time, living with her parents plus four brothers and sisters before they vacated the house gave her a competitive streak even if the only remaining one would never do something as classy as taking an early bath for himself. Then she remembered that today she wasn't alone with Trent in the house; Daria was in the house and judging for how she acted yesterday she had expended a much worse weekend than she did, and considering how much of a jerks were the members of her extended family that was saying something.

Deciding that hitting Daria with all the relevant questions about the 'Camping trip of Hell' was far more important right now than a breakfast of cold cereal she went to her long gone sister's room to get her friend while she was groggy and with her defenses low enough that she could get a tasty gossip or two before the walls of Jericho were manned again.

All thoughts of getting to tease her friend were postponed when she saw the state of Penny's room, with an empty bed looking as if no one slept there during the night despite the fact she had set Daria in there after granting her asylum. Somewhat confused she went looking for her and the humidity in the bathroom told her that someone had used the shower, and considering that Trent usually thought twice about taking a bath before noon, even when someone threw up on him, then Daria had probably decided that she felt a little too dirty, yesterday she had been soaked with sweat before falling like a log, and took matters on her own hands.

Taking the chance to get her desired bath before someone else came and threw her out she went straight to the shower and soaked herself in a delicious ice cold bath to fully wake up. Then after drying and dressing she was about to go downstairs when she saw a stray hair in the sink; she was about to dismiss it but something about its length bothered her. When she walked towards the sink to take a closer look she saw that it wasn't just one hair, but many of them, for some reason they reminded her of the time Daria and her were teasing the attendant at Scissor Wizard, and then she saw the garbage can…

"Oh shit!" She went to Trent's room, hoping beyond hope that she would be there, staring at her brother asking if he liked her new look, instead of the other things that her imagination provided thanks to both one chapter too many of 'Sick, Sad, World" and her own best friend.

"Trent, is Daria here? Trent!"

"Officer, they threw the first punch. I swear."

"Trent wake up!"

"Ugh? Janey, what's going on?" Now that he was up, he could see that her usually cool sister seemed scared, and that was enough for him to shred the everlasting cloud on his head.

"Daria is missing. I can't find her or the stuff she came here last night. And when I went to the bathroom I found… I found her hair Trent, in the garbage can. She would never cut her hair like that!" And suddenly Trent was as worried about her sister's cynical friend, if not even more. Daria's hair was probably her most girly feature, even more than the skirts she wore; there were few cases were any chick would cut her hair like that; the one he could think of was when one of the Harpies was molested by some drunk. Even after both Monique and the entire Mystik Spiral had beaten the crap out of him before he could do something, Henrietta had shaved her head clean for reasons he still couldn't really understand.

"I'll go and search downstairs. Have you called her mom? Maybe she went back home for some clothes or something."

Jane didn't even answer him, running to the nearest phone, dialing as fast as she could, just to find the line busy. "Come on Miss M. this is not the time to get stuck to the phone."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

In the Morgendorffer residence the cop Burns had assigned to keep the house secured until they could get the forensics sat in the burn out kitchen eating something he had found in the fridge. The place was eerily silent, mostly because of the damage the phone line suffered from the fire, the foam shoot from the first responders extinguishers, and the thoughtful soaking the fire department did on every surface of the kitchen just in case.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"She's not here Jane."

"And they don't answer the phone. What can I do Trent?" She was feeling the panic raising in her voice. She knew something was wrong yesterday but she had leaved it for another day. And what if there wasn't another day? What if…

"…Go to school."

"Wait, what?"

"Go to school Jane, maybe Daria went there and you can talk to her there."

"And even if she doesn't want to talk I can shake the truth out of Quinn. Good idea Trent." With that she took her stuff and run straight to Lawndale High, paying no mind to the abnormal number and seriousness of the police in the streets.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody was able to arrive to the gym and put her stuff into the locker without any further complication, but now she was struggling again with her most constant enemy since her crash in the helicopter, the lack of physical conditioning. She had come ready to tackle the available machinery with zeal in order to get her in peak form as soon as possible, but her weak muscles, and the lack of any memory regarding exercise, muscle or otherwise, almost provoked an accident as soon as she took some weights she thought she could handle and was only barely able to avoid getting asphyxiated by the bar crushing her chest. She had been forced herself to be grateful for the trainer who went there and help her remove the bar and then lend her some little neon colored dumbbells that as far are she was concerned were an insult to women all around the world and gave her a series of light exercises worthy only of a child that she had to do with a smile in her face to keep her cover.

The worst part was that, as far as her body was concerned, the exercises he recommended were far more challenging that she expected. She was weak, and that was going to be a problem that she would need to live for a while until she could condition this new body to the old one's standards.

The trainer wasn't impressed with the determination in the girls face. Most of the teens quit when they saw how hard the exercises were, yet this one was still trying to get the heaviest workout possible. That usually meant that she was one of those kids that wanted to get their weight down to one of those stick thin actresses and when exercise would not allow them to do so in a week they would go to worship the ceramic god after each meal to throw down their food.

He would have to at least give her one of the business cards of the nutriologist… after he stopped her from hurting herself on the weights.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

As the man outside the hospital room slowly walked towards the parking he twisted his cigarette without turning it on. For any witness it would have been a weird but not altogether strange way of dealing with the fact that this was a no smoke zone.

Those who knew Captain Burnout or his father would already be running to the hills in abject terror.

He had just leaved Winston's room, and for each one of his questions that were answered another took its place. He had been send to the Morgendorffer house as a favor to one of Chief Jackson's friends at the end of his shift to get some personal papers from the home of a lawyer that had been in a DIU accident in Oakwood with Marianne Richmond as a witness of the procedure, a procedure that apparently wasn't recorded in the logbook due to either idiocy of the sergeant in duty. That explained why he was there, as well as the fact that he had been jumped, this was a milk run, even stopping teen parties in the nice side of town carried more risk than fetching some papers and a night bag.

He hadn't detected any sign of a break in, and in fact Winston was sure that he passed the bathroom where the ambush came from at least thrice before he was knifed. And even then he had time for a snapshot from the hip before the guy was upon him but he had aimed a little too high and missed. The rest was just a litany of the procedures he had performed, which to his eyes were even beyond the standards of the department for similar circumstances and he could at least defend him in case Jackson decided to make him the scapegoat of this fracas.

The meeting with Marianne was far more productive, at least once he had managed to convince his husband not to use the firm's legal counsel to muddle up things thanks to Barney's idiotic theory of painting her as the offender. Thankfully even with a nasty migraine Marianne was reasonable enough to calm her husband and answer his questions.

He now knew that the DIU of the Morgendorffer family was instead an accidental poisoning with some sort of natural LSD wannabe and that the accident part was the older daughter shooting a helicopter. Frankly he had heard of the helicopter doing an emergency landing in the middle of nowhere, but he believed to either be poor maintenance or human error, not someone going berserk. More to the point anyone willing to do that while inside the craft was someone really dangerous and that might not take being cornered well.

The rest of the story was even weirder. After taking Winston's gun the girl had chained both of them before going upstairs. She remarked the fact that they hadn't been mistreated and she even gave Marianne some tips to help Winston, but then she told Marianne some gibberish and then asked her why she was in the home. According to her the scary stuff started once she tried telling the girl about her mother, just to her not recognizing Helen Morgendorffer as such, but firmly believing she had been raped and tortured to insanity alongside the rest of the family. At that point Marianne was sure that she would be killed, but instead the girl took them outside before torching the kitchen and drugging her.

Right now he was radioing an updated bolo with the name and features of Daria Morgendorffer aka Melody Powers as well as her higher threat assessment and then he was going to the station to call the Oakwood Police Department for some information, and if he had some remaining time he was ripping Jackson and his cronies a new one for this.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Burnout didn't need to worry about calling the OPD, as Eddie Brock was currently halfway to Lawndale already, with one of the lawyers from the Attorney Office in tow. The enmity between Oakwood and Lawndale was one thing, but once it reached the point where they would deny calls from a police unit to another, even when there was a chance that a policeman was down something must be done.

The emergency session with the State Judge and the proceeding charges of Obstruction to Justice took all night to work out, but this time LPD would listen or else…

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Jake awoke in a hospital in Oakwood two days after the accident, thirsty and hurting from a dozen different places we hadn't remembered they existed since the hellish years of military school.

'Where am I?' Opening his eyes he could see only white, first as a hazy blur, but then the blurs gained consistency until he could begin to recognize shapes. 'A curtain, and that's a chair. I think. But what's on the chair. Who… who's on the chair? Red hair… red hair...'

"Quinn…" He could barely talk at all, but this was enough for the figure in the chair to stir, if only a little. "Quinn, where…"

"Daddy? Hey nurse or doctor or whatever. Daddy's waking!" The shout of his younger daughter as she pressed a button in the wall made him cringle. He felt worse than the binge of pot and tequila he took once with Coyote after midterms.

A nurse arrived to the room almost at once, checking his vitals as a doctor came inside the room followed by…

"Helen! Thank god. Why Am I here, what's going on?" Jake asked, even if his throat was so dry he almost couldn't be heard.

"We were in an accident Jake, Quinn and I woke up yesterday, but your case is a little harder and they had to be more careful with the treatment." Helen answered.

"You and Quinn, what about Daria? Is she…" Then it hit him like his father in one of his worse moods.

"_NO, KIDDO, NO!"_

"_I won't kill him" _

"_Suck it Mad Dog! I'm better than you!"_

"Oh god, Daria was in the helicopter and she… oh god." Jake was losing color so fast that Helen was worried about his newly found Arrhythmia. "Mister Morgendorffer, Jake calm down. Get me a sedative!" And it seemed that the doctor shared her concern.

"No, no, no. You don't understand. My kiddo needs help. I was so scared when I saw her in the helicopter; she would never do something like that but she was like possessed."

"Wait, you remember the crash?" The nurse said just to receive a dirty look from the doctor in charge. What? This was probably the most interesting piece of gossip in the history of the hospital and she was curious.

"The crash?" It was a little fuzzy but Jake did remember screams, including his own, while they were falling from the sky. He remembered a hurried conversation and the mention of Migs and then the face of horror of her daughter as the man's head in the forward seat bobbled and they rushed to the ground. "Yeah, I remember some of it."

She was last seen near home, the police is already searching for her, and soon we'll see her." Helen was as usual pretty bad at lying when her family was concerned, something that right now even Jake could clearly see. She was worried and she could barely hide it from Quinn.

"Sorry Mrs. Morgendorffer but I still need to test Mr. Morgendorffer.

"_I call for help as soon as I reach the road. I'm sorry I can't do more."_

"Oh kiddo."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"…and students, remember that Saturday's ceremony honoring our own local hero is strictly voluntary, so if you miss it you will volunteer for a week of detentions doing clean up duty and maintenance at our loved Lawndale High."

Jane didn't pay any attention at Li's latest scheme for the glory of LHS; she was too busy looking for someone. All but confirming her worse fears Daria had missed the first period and now she was searching for Quinn to ask her what the hell was going on.

Finally she found Sandi, Stacy and Tiffany on their classroom, and her target couldn't be too far off.

"Sandi, where's Quinn? I need to talk to her."

"Take a turn. We were supposed to do a preliminary study for fall's fashion." Sandi answered.

"Yes, we expended Mr. O'Neill class talking about what the rest of the girls are wearing, I even took notes." Stacy added while Tiffany just concentrated in her mirror, trying to correct an imagined imperfection on her skin.

"Wait? That means that Quinn cut classes?" Now the alarms inside Jane's head were upgrading to DEFCON 1, while it wasn't rare for Quinn to play hooky, she was a loudmouth who always told either her friends, drones, or even Daria herself if she was desperate enough.

"Yes, and she better have a good reason to do so, in fact I'll perform a disciplinary meeting as soon as she gets here, especially if she went to a chic place without inviting us."

As soon as she leaved the classroom she went to the nearest payphone, hoping that the call would be answered by someone, anyone. But she had the same luck that in the morning… meaning none.

She was about to cut class herself when she was found Miss Claire, the one teacher that she wouldn't purposefully contradict, and escorted to class while talking about one of the art exhibits at the community college.

Jane just half listened to the otherwise interesting conversation. She was far too worried about her best friend

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

After taking a second -hot- bath in the day to soothe her aching muscles, the first order of business in the day was to ask for the Yellow Pages in the gym and find an optometrist.

The place she had found was old, probably the oldest surviving one in the city, with the sign outside proudly boasting nearly a hundred years of tradition and the counters a mix of modern commercial frames and much older ones that nowadays weren't in use anymore and were probably mementos of the days when spectacles were work of artisans rather than of machines. The man behind the counter looked old enough to be another memento, with far more winkles than his scarce grey hair and golden wire glasses, Melody noted with approval that while his frames looked as old as the shop, the crystal itself was new and perfectly fitted.

Melody's glasses on the other were anything but, in the way in she took the glasses she had found on the Morgendorffer's house, and due to the little use she could get out of them she decided to gamble a little on a ruse and break them completely and mend them even worse than they were before. "Good morning, thank god is open."

"Good morning young lady, what can I help you?"

"Well…" She said as she gestured towards her glasses, "I had a little accident yesterday and my good glasses were broken. And when I went for my reserve ones I discovered that dad sat on them a couple of weeks ago and he confessed just yesterday." The last part was said with feinted exasperation.

"Sorry to hear that, now, let me see those." She handed the glasses with some trepidation, her eyesight was as bad as ever and without them she was virtually defenseless. Much to her relief the examination itself was fairly fast and she was once more seeing things (at least to the front, her periphery vision was still one hell of a weakness).

"Well, there are beyond hope, the frame is pretty battered and the crystal itself is cracked on the edge so reframing is impossible even if I had some frames of the same model, which I don't anyway. And from here I can see that the prescription is not the appropriate for you. Why don't we take a look to the chart?" Melody followed and after a few minutes she finally knew for certain how much damage did the butchers at the Farm did to her 20/20 vision.

"Well, with the needed correction is going to take a few days to get you some new spectacles, which model do you want, depending on the label it might take a few days." Melody browsed through the pictures from the catalog and in a sad voice asked, "Which ones are the fastest? At much as I hate it I cannot be choosy right now, can barely see and my grades are bad enough without being able to see the board."

"I see… Just hold up for a minute please." The man went to the back of the shop and returned five minutes later with a pair of old browline glasses with aluminum top. "These are the only glasses I have that are of the correct diopter, however they're a relic of the late fifties, and I admit that a little heavy than most modern ones, not to mention out of fashion, but I think they will at least be of use long enough for you to get some good glasses for yourself instead of whatever trash can get done faster, don't you think so?" The man said with a kind smile.

"Thanks, but is it okay for you to lend me these vintage glasses?"

"No problem, glasses are tools, and I prefer for them to be used like that instead of just gathering dust. Or worse, having some fool asking me to get these lensless for some swing-retro stuff, as if they were props!"

"Can't see the point in that either." Melody said with a smile, after all her childhood was in the late fifties and while she treasured that time she would never would look backwards, not to her past successes and failures and much less to the old practices. The future of the U.S.A. was always forward. The man answered with another smile at the pun and adjusted the glasses so that they would properly fit her head.

Then she went to the catalog and selected a pair of glasses that were as different from the pair she found in her face the day that she awoke in the chopper. Then she asked a question. "Can you get also one of those yellow tinted graduated goggles for sports?"

"No problem, I can get both your choice and a couple of those for Wednesday. I'll just need an advance payment."

After they money issues were addressed Melody went to the nearest bathroom and applied some mascara to change a little more her look, that plus the new glasses gave her a completely different look from yesterday, which was necessary as each hour would increase the chances of her enemies deciding to post her photo all over the city.

She visited another two optometrists before the day was over. Each one with a different story and a slightly different petition

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Chief Jackson weekend hadn't been one of the bests he ever had. The Lawndale Lion's defeat to the Oakwood Taproots, had been bad for his pockets as he had lost the traditional bet between the fathers of the teams, especially since it had been a reckless helicopter pilot buzzing the field at a critical moment the one that stole the victory of the Lions in the week one of their most famed heroes was supposed to assist. The notice that shortly after that Oakwood had lost that same chopper in the woods had morbidly lifted his mood for a while, the request for getting his troops in up in a frenzy for a completely unnecessary Amber Alert was definitely a way for Oakwood to mess with them after their fixing the game, so he just put to good use the Book and stalled Oakwood's police with it. 'Let them fill the paperwork for their little joke.'

That miscalculation bit him in the ass when the next day he had one of the head honchos of Vitale, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter, '_asked_' him to get the Amber Alert rolling as well as the help of his officers to get some documentation from a locket house (with the appropriate permit of the owners of course) and therefore passing the paperwork back to him tenfold. He had done that, asking his man in the sergeant desk to send someone to meet the representative of the law firm while he postponed the paperwork at least 'till Monday, claiming to need a few additional documents. After that he went home earlier just to find his son still morose about the lost, so he went and watched with him some reruns of the Pigskin Channel with the cell phone off to avoid any unwarranted call, if they needed him Barney would dial his house.

Now he was arriving to the office –slightly late as it was his prerogative– hoping to find someone to dump his paperwork while he talked with the mayor about a new initiative to improve the image of the police corps, which had been deteriorating lately just to find the station chaos.

The secretaries were all moving from the phones to the large city map, annotating in it the movement of patrol cars, at the same time he could tell that there were far more units in it than usual and much less cops on their desks.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Boss, one of our guys was knifed last night. We have been combing the area, but no bites yet." One of the desk jockeys of the First Shift answered

"What! Why the hell I wasn't called about it!?"

"Oh, we tried, but your cell was off and Barney decided not to give us your phone number, or god forbids it, your address." The cutting remark came from Burnout, the captain of Lawndale's Major Crimes Unit and his nominal second in command. And right now he was looking almost as pissed as the incident in Lawndale High two years ago. "It would have been quite useful to get your input in this case, since it was under your orders that Frank was send to the house of the primary suspect and I couldn't get that until this morning when the victims could present their declaration."

He could feel the eyes of everyone in the station on his back, so he decided to adjourn to his office. He was going to voice his decision when the same cop who told him about the problem talked again.

"Boss, there are an Oakwood detective and a DA in the lobby, and they're demanding to see you. And boss they have a court order with them."

Jackson could do nothing but facepalm and groan.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Melody was finally ready, after the optometrist she had gone to a barber shop to get her hair even, this time using as an excuse a 7 year old sister who decided to cut her hair when she was asleep. She had asked, and after a token fight from the barber, cut her hair with the most androgynous style possible. She was certain that with baggy clothes and the appropriate posture she could pass as an effeminate junior high student or as a tomboy as the situation requires.

From then she went to a shopping spree in a place called Dega Street, where she got in different shops a cheap camera, some decent binoculars and an old army jacket from a pawn shop. She would have preferred some additional clothes to give herself some extra options for disguises but she could go to her stash in the gym only in limited occasions. From there she went to a cyber café as far as possible from the one she had visited last time and sit in the darkest corner she could with her knife safely concealed in her clothes.

As soon as she could she disconnected the LAN cable from the machine and inserted the CD she had acquired from her computer the previous day and promptly (and quietly) cursed. The information was partially corrupted, probably from getting her disk before it could properly record the information, but she couldn't deny the possibility that the files were encrypted and without the farm's Crays she couldn't even hope to read those files, so she concentrated on the ones that were legible.

"Damn." She had ended with a large, an utterly useless collection of books that, while quite interesting, were completely normal and, with the exception of the 'Terrorist Cookbook', could be found in any library. There were a few additional archives, but as far as she could see those were little more than homework, and while she expended an hour carefully reading it she could honestly say that other than well written they contained at best some interesting twists for the literature and history ones and at worst were just drivel to keep teachers away.

Then she hit jackpot, one of the papers talked about the classic experiment of the mouse in a maze, standard biology and/or psychology stuff, but while most of the procedure was what she could expect from those experiments, even if it was curious how the feminine was used for the general explanation of the experiment and the description of positive reinforcement, while the masculine was used only whenever they exposed the mouse to negative reinforcement, the last day it was written just a simple word.

Kidnapped

The next annotations were the conclusions of the experiment.

In conclusion, this mouse was repeatedly abused by a ten-year-old boy. As a result, the mouse's primary response to everyday stimuli is fear. Similar reactions also occur in humans. 

Take the mugging victim, beaten with nunchaks in an alleyway. As he, or she, recalls the attacker's face - his scraggly goatee and cheap, dangly earring - she learns to hate and fear all men, regardless of age, race or taste in jewelry.

That sounded a lot like the effects of the Morgendorffer family, with one day them being normal and then in less than a weekend driven to madness. She would have a heart to heart talk with J. Barch one of these days, maybe followed by a knife to the heart.

She expended the rest of her time in the café reading the archives for another clue.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The meeting had been tense, with the both the Jackson and Burns resenting the presence of the Oakwood's detective almost as much as they did with each other, but due to the very real threat of charges of obstruction of justice there wasn't anything to do about it.

"So that idiot Barney took my dismissal a little too literal. While I did told him that I was gone for the day and that I didn't want any calls directed to me unless someone died, I didn't expect him to take that literally, nor to block your calls without even listen to them." Jackson was telling the truth, he had been a little melodramatic but even he expected to be called ASAP whenever one of his officers was down.

Burnout decided to add his two cents, "Believe me, I can tell you that Barney is without any doubt the dimmest guy to ever wear the uniform, and he is literal to a fault. If there is a soul capable of committing such an idiotic mistake is he." The part of him not worried about a crazy delusional teen with a gun was enjoying the pained face of his nominal superior.

"Believe me, he will be punished accordingly." And Jackson was going to make sure to take his pension away after kicking him out, the department was a little low on money and the idiot had performed a crime by hanging on the OPD so he couldn't even sue.

"Okay, now back in tract gentlemen. Did Mrs. Morgendorffer told you of anyplace were her daughter might be?"

"Daria only have one friend…" the detective checked his notebook, "Jane Lane, a sophomore of Lawndale High School. She doesn't remember the address."

Both Jackson and Burns shared a look. Since the incident two years ago the police was strictly forbidden from accessing the installations of the school. It was only a local ordinance, but one that had been part of the measures taken after the riots and heavily endorsed by the governor. In fact the LPD took great care to keep their patrol routes at least a couple of blocks away from the school grounds just in case. Luckily principal Li had taken enough measures to at least prevent students from committing the most blatant crimes thanks to almost paranoid security measures.

It was Burns who took the initiative. "We can call the school, in case Daria isn't there my niece is a sophomore too, with a little bit of luck she's even in the same class. If anyone asks I can go there as her relative and then have a chat with Lane. Li knows that the agreement does allow for discrete investigations as long as we go there unarmed."

"And if Miss Morgendorffer is at the school?" The question came from Eddie, who had a couple of additional days to get a lot of what if's and worst case scenarios on his head.

"We can call the principal first, if she's there then we tell her to discreetly evacuate the school and let a Tactical Team make the arrest, fast and hard. We should also send a couple of uniforms to the Lane's in case she's there."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Jane was in the middle of DeMartino's class, just waiting for the bell to sound so that she could run straight towards Daria's home and finally discover what the hell was going on with her friend. She had already been called to answer once, and she had done so with a minimum of fuss and sarcasm, she had been so distracted that DeMartino left her alone the rest of the class, directing his attention towards the rest of the students, from time to time looking at Daria's seat between the anger attacks directed at Brittany and Kevin.

Her musings were then interrupted by the arrival of Li followed by an older man. While she wasn't really paying any attention she couldn't help but to notice that Li was particularly nervous and skittish.

She was wondering about that when the man spoke. "Hey Jenny, how's school treating you?"

"Fine Uncle Jeff, what brings you here?"

"Nothing much, just came for some business with around here, and decided to say hello to my favorite niece."

At the same time Li went to her desk. "Miss Lane, please come to my office. I have an urgent… no, no, no, merely an important, and not that important at that, matter to talk with you." For once she wasn't in the mood to even bait the dictator so she rose from her seat and went out. The sooner she dealt with her the sooner she could get out of school.

She was hurriedly taken to the office of Manson, but instead of finding the quack she was soon facing a serious looking Mr. Burns, a Mr. Burns who had his walled out and was showing to her a shiny badge.

"Jane, I'm Captain Burns of the Lawndale Police Department Major Crimes Unit and I need to talk with you about Daria."


End file.
